


An August Canticle For Saint Francis

by Hannah



Series: Dog Days Are Over [6]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:16:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 104,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On what it takes to keep pace with the world.</p><p> </p><p> <i>Tune in the signal but it’s fading, oh</i><br/><i>Some ghost strumming his guitar on the radio</i><br/><i>Singing, “Oh, the glory days are gone but everything’s okay</i><br/><i>’cause we still love our sex and drugs just like the good ol’ days”</i></p><p> <i> -	“Internet Killed The Video Star,” The Limousines</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Amp, Anne, Eliza, Kara, and Marty for cheering me on, and Cyan, Mus, and ZiGraves for beta-reading.

1.

What got Scout to buy the house, the thing that made him come and see if he’d want to buy it in the first place, was that it had three bedrooms. Three bedrooms meant there were two bedrooms that weren’t his. He could have a guest over and give them their own room, he could have a bunch of guests over and give them each their own place to crash, but no matter how many people came to visit he wouldn’t have to share his room if he didn’t want to. 

After he’d signed everything in the stack of paperwork and handed over the check he got the keys. After he walked into his own house for the first time, he went through the house slowly, sniffing in that weird smell empty rooms got when nobody had been living in them for a long time. He sat down in the middle of the living room, looking out across the city all the way out to the ocean, and then lay down, hands on his chest, looking up at the ceiling in his house. It was his, he’d paid for it, the whole thing, and he’d live here. A house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage, a freaking enormous kitchen, a washer and dryer and big windows all over the place, a huge living room and a balcony with a million-dollar view out to the Pacific Ocean, right in the middle of a gorgeous neighborhood.

He’d wanted to buy his mother a house like this. Sort of like this. Something like it, something big and fancy all for her with all the money he’d brought home. She smiled and hugged him and said with everyone else gone, the house was already all for her, and she had plenty of space now, and she’d miss it too much. So he’d hugged her and kissed her and smiled back, and promised to share whatever he could with the rest of his family.

The living room was big enough that two bedrooms and one of the bathrooms from the old house would have fit inside. Scout got up and started walking through the house again, rubbing the keys in his pocket to get his fingers used to them. Back in Boston, his house had been three stories tall, plus the basement, plus the little attic, because they’d needed to stack as much as possible on top of everything else when they’d built it, because that’d been the best way to get the place bigger. Here, nobody’d seemed to care about that when this place went up. He did a circuit of the downstairs, the laundry space, bathroom, and bedroom and little extra room for whatever could fit in there that wouldn’t fit in the garage. Upstairs had the bedrooms next to each other looking out at the street, and the bigger one, the one that’d be his, had a door out onto the patio on the side of the house. He went through the kitchen back to the living room, looked at where he’d been sitting, then turned around, opened up all the doors and windows and went out onto the living room’s main balcony to feel the wind on his face, watch the sun set over the ocean and get the empty room smell out of the house. 

It was about as big as the house he’d grown up in, maybe a little bigger with the balconies and the extra room attached to the garage, but the rooms that people would use all the time – the bathrooms and bedrooms and kitchens – all of that together was about as much as the house he’d grown up in. Just sharing it around between less rooms, so the rooms it had were bigger. Even his apartment hadn’t had this much space in it, and that thing’d been built newer than this. This house, his house, got built in the twenties, and his apartment went up in the sixties. And he’d made sure that’d had a guest bedroom in it, too.

He’d had to go back to Boston for a few days to make sure his stuff got sent across the country good and safe. And his mom’s stuff, too, the stuff of hers he’d gotten that hadn’t gone to his brothers and their kids. Her stuff needed to get packed up by real professionals, not just some random moving guys from some random moving place – a lot of his stuff, too, not delicate but sure as hell needing to be handled with care. And it made more sense to buy stuff new in Frisco than ship it all the way clear across the country, so by the time all the boxes arrived, he was pretty well settled in already, and had already been sleeping in his new bedroom for the past four days.

The first thing Scout ate in his house was cioppino delivered from all the way over from North Beach, a stew too thin to be a chowder, made with crabs and clams and fish and all sorts of spices he ate on the living room floor. He’d gotten vanilla ice cream for dessert to go with it, and he ate that out on the back balcony looking out towards the ocean at the fog coming in. When he was done, he locked the front door behind him and went back to the hotel for the night.

When he got back from his first-ever morning run around the neighborhood, hot and sweaty and happy to be pissed at the hills, the first thing Scout made in his house was pancakes. He threw more butter than he needed onto the pan, served them to himself with plenty of syrup, and stopped halfway through the little stack to look around at where he was. Really look around himself and take it in. Eating the pancakes he’d made himself in his own house.

“Welcome home t’me, I guess.”


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Unpacking everything took two days. Some of it still went fast, like tossing his clothes into drawers, and some of it took him a while, like finding a good spot for his old radio. And he wasn’t just gonna throw his bats and guns in one corner of the garage and forget about them, not when they were going up on nice racks and display holders, and he was keeping his goddamn stock pistol in his bedside table. No way was he sleeping without it right where he could grab it if he needed it.

Scout tried out his radio that night. Maybe half the size of an old breadbox, with giant knobs and the one big speaker, he’d bought it back in 1964 when he’d finally gotten his own room for the first time, saving up all his money for weeks and months to get something worth having. It took up most of the windowsill by his bed, then and now, and it still worked perfectly. He tuned through the different stations, finding what it could pick up from here. There was a news channel, some guy running his mouth over something about the trains, some DJ in Berkeley announcing some new French and European stuff, a channel of old rock and roll songs that’d all been new when he’d bought the radio. That one he stayed on and he lay down and listened for a while, just listened to the radio, like he hadn’t done in ages.

The next morning he grabbed his tossle cap for his morning run through the fog coming in around the hills. It stayed on through the day, kept the dust out of his hair as he hammered in nails to hang up the pictures and paintings. He went back out for another run in the afternoon around the red-and-white tower, whatever it was called, and looped through the neighborhood to get some groceries for dinner. Just at some regular neighborhood grocery. Scout was still getting used to what that meant in San Francisco. He knew what avocados were, and mangoes, he’d started seeing papayas and kiwis in the really fancy supermarkets in Boston a few years ago, he’d taken his Ma and his brothers and some lucky girls to enough fancy restaurants. He’d heard of fennel even if it hadn’t existed when he was a kid, and here it was in the produce section right next to the lettuce.

“Did you find everything okay?”

“Huh, wha?”

The cashier looked at him, fresh blue lipstick that match her eyes, and asked again, “Did you find everything all right? You got all the stuff you looked for?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah I did.” He hadn’t realized it was a question at first – in Boston people didn’t usually ask that stuff in times like this and want an answer. “Didn’t miss the oranges or nothin’.”

“Good to hear that.” She handed his groceries over, and he started fitting them into his bag. “Hope to see you back here soon.”

“Yeah, uh, hope to be back in not too soon.”

Her nametag said Kitty, and she nodded good-bye as he left the store with a little ding from the sliding doors, and began running back to his place. The fog hadn’t left all day and had just gotten stronger, and right now it was rolling in off the hills, and he took another turn when he should’ve gone straight, just to keep running through it and watch the streetlamps make the fog shine. Weird oranges and yellows that made everything look like it was something in some old painting or a drawing that didn’t have any lines, like in the big art books his Ma loved and used to help him read when he was little and sick.

The next day was a lot brighter, no fog or clouds and kind of warm for March, and he had some phone calls to make. Phone calls he’d been meaning to make since before he’d moved out here, but if they’d waited two weeks they could wait another day. Golden Gate Park had some honest-to-goodness baseball fields, nice and open and tucked away between some little hills, and he hadn’t thought they’d be there the first time he ran through. The whole Park was crammed full of stuff like them, like the greenhouse that looked just like it did in the movies, and the lake with the island and all the people out rowing, all sorts of stuff that made it more like an amusement park than a park inside a city. 

But baseball was always baseball.

There wasn’t anyone else out on the fields, nobody coming by, so Scout played the best game he could by himself. It took two swings, two bad shots, for his body to remember something his brain had forgotten in almost a year and a half of not doing it – remember to slide the heel, turn the hips, move at the knees and the elbows and the shoulders, move everything at once, and let go gently and it’ll go. No forgetting that, no way was he forgetting that sound of the ball hitting the bat, it was too pretty to forget. And no way was he forgetting how to hit the ball where he wanted it to go, or how to whoop and cheer loud enough to make up for nobody else joining in.

He didn’t drop his bat and run back to it with his ball, just ran over to where it’d landed and then hit it somewhere new, and then ran over and hit it somewhere new again. Getting back into the swing of swinging, hitting it all the way over to the other corner of the second diamond or just over to the nearest corner of this one, grass under his shoes where he ran on the lawn and gravel under them when he ran on the diamonds. He was laughing for no reason at all, tossing the ball up and down, and when a seagull flew over the second diamond he didn’t even think about it, and his ball was flying and then the seagull hit the ground with a scream pitched higher than Scout could ever manage and a little quiet thump.

Oh – oh, shit, oh shit.

When he got over to it, the bird was still breathing, but not good, and it couldn’t move one of its wings, just lying there as still as his ball. The bird’s beak had a red dot on it, and it took Scout a moment to see that the dot was just there. All the blood was on his ball.

The bird coughed again, and he didn’t think birds could cough, but that was the sound it made, and he knew that wasn’t a good sound for anything to make, all wet and hurt. He’d made that sound, before he got a hit off Medic’s guns or Soldier shot him to put him out of his misery, and Medic wasn’t around and Soldier wasn’t, and it coughed again, and he knew it didn’t want what was going on to keep on going – he’d always wanted it to be over as fast as he could.

He made sure it was over fast, one hit, just bringing his bat down right on its head. Batting its skull in, its tiny little head, and it didn’t even take anything to do it – there wasn’t a big mess or even a big noise, nothing fighting his bat, going down through its head almost all the way to the ground. And then the whole bird went still, not even a bird anymore, just a mess of feathers and meat the way people became messes of meat and bone.

And then he heard someone screaming at him.

Scout jumped up from the mess, bat at the ready, everything in his head going clear to take in the field and what was on it, where was it coming from, did he need to grab his pistol, what did – 

“What the hell is wrong with you!”

“What?” A small woman who looked maybe his oldest brother’s age was coming over, pulling up her skirt to walk faster but stopping at the far edge of the second diamond like she didn’t want to get too close.

“I said, what the hell is wrong with you! Look at this, what is this, what the hell is this you’re doing!”

“Now, hold on, what’s it you’re –”

“A bird lands on the ground and you see you should just run over and start killing it, what’s the thought with that? Who’s the damn person that thinks that?”

“Hey!” Scout started stomping over to her. “You got any idea what’s goin’ on over here? Yeah, no, didn’t think so, if you had you’d’ve seen –”

“I didn’t need to! Look at you, look at –”

“What the hell do I gotta look at it for? I gotta be the one t’take care of my messes, what the hell’s your problem you gotta be comin’ over here, yellin’ over nothin’, it was over by the time you fuckin’ showed up an’ started yellin’, lemme tell ya what –”

“There’s nothing else I need, I’m coming here and you’re killing innocent birds, there’s nothing else, what the hell else could there be?”

“Lady, you listen!”

“No, you listen! This is a goddamn public park, you want to be a bastard and kill things you do it somewhere else, you go home and do that, you don’t do it out here!”

“I didn’t want t’kill it, you crazy – I wanted it dead, I didn’t wanna kill it! I just wanted – it had t’be over fast, I didn’t wanna –”

She kept yelling, but he didn’t hear it, couldn’t hear her, not her or anything over his breathing, what he’d just said and how much he meant it. He couldn’t feel anything besides the pounding of his feet on the grass as he turned around and ran away, scooping up his ball and hightailing it out of there, dashing home and slamming the door behind him the minute he got inside.

It’d been there, that was all. Scout pulled out one of the dining table’s chairs and sat down in it, head in his hands. He’d seen the bird and he hadn’t thought about it, all he’d seen was something moving when he had his ball in his hand. There hadn’t been anything to think about, just one thing to do, and a bird wasn’t something that mattered the way a grenade or a rocket mattered but he hadn’t seen that until after he’d hit it down. And he’d hurt it too bad for it to get better, and he’d had to make it fast.

He ordered Chinese for dinner, tipped the delivery guy a ten, and ate half of it before sticking the rest in the fridge and going for an early shower. Nice and cold, something to get his mind back on track away from the yelling and what’d gotten him yelled at, but when he got into bed, even with his radio playing and as much as he wanted to get to sleep, he couldn’t get himself to where he could.

So he got out of bed, went to the living room and pulled out one of his Ma’s old big art books, taking it back to his room and leaning up against his bed with it open in his lap. When they’d all had to clear out the house nobody else had wanted them, not even his fourth-oldest brother’s wife, so all of them were here. They were pretty much all secondhand, yard sales and library book sales and things like that, and he’d loved looking at them when he was younger but hadn’t gone through them in a long time.

Now, he took his time and lingered on the parts of the books where all the paintings were, and all the drawings, stuff from America and Europe, skipping over the parts that talked about the people that’d made the pictures and just looked at them. They weren’t as big as they used to be, but still big enough they took up most of his lap, and he still had to reach a little to flip the pages. The radio kept playing, and Scout really started reading, not just the little captions that said who painted them and when and where they were hanging – and some of them were in San Francisco, that was pretty neat, maybe he’d go see them in person sometime – but also the stuff on what the painters did and what they’d meant, that wasn’t just someone taking a bath or a bunch of haystacks early in the morning. Stuff like what it meant to say they were a mother, or what it meant to be alone in a city. It took him four pages of that to get to where he started yawning, and another ten before he felt his brain start to stop moving.

Scout left the book by the side of the bed when he turned out the light, and put it back on the shelf in the morning. His ball and bat where still where he’d left them yesterday, right by the front door, but it turned out they still had blood on them, so he went to clean them off before putting them away. And he could just hear Demo sigh, shaking his head and saying what good was he if he couldn’t clean up his weapons or take good care of them. It was almost funny, how clear he could hear him – and dammit, he was right, just because he didn’t use them to kill people anymore, just birds – 

Just because he didn’t use them to kill people anymore didn’t mean they had to get tossed around like they didn’t mean anything. Once they were clean he hung his Sandman up on the rack with the rest of his bats, put the ball back where it was supposed to be, and then went to make the coffee. And as soon as the offices opened up for the day’s business, he finally got around to those phone calls and making the appointments.

Funny enough, Demo had set him up with the people he had to call, too. Not the ones he was calling that picked up the phone on the first ring and whose offices he visited two days later, but the people that got him in touch with them, who’d transferred his account over when they’d retired about a decade ago. The new guys and the old guys were both part of the same big national network of brokers and accountants, paper pushers like he’d sometimes see through doorways and down hallways when he’d go to one of RED’s headquarters, or like what his fifth and sixth oldest brothers did when they’d finished college and got their own jobs. He’d been trusting the guys in the network with his money since nineteen seventy-five and they’d done a good job of it, so when he moved out to San Francisco, he just had them move it across the country like the moving guys did with his furniture. 

They’d been doing so good a job of it, not only was he all right with his house, Bay Area property taxes and everything, but if he handled it right – if he let them handle it right, was what he knew they wanted to say – he wouldn’t have to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to. Scout knew he’d been set on money since his first paycheck came in and he had to ask Miss Pauling if that was really the right number of zeroes, but he’d never heard anyone else say it to him, and he had to fight to stay in the chair and remember to blink.

“Yeah, that – that sounds pretty good,” he said, staring at the buildings he could see through her office windows.

Mrs. Carlson smiled. “It’s a really good portfolio you’ve got, actually. You made some good investments over the years.”

“Yeah. I, ah, you guys always helped out with that. Pickin’ the right things t’give money to t’get some back later.”

“So is there anything else you want to discuss today, or was this just a check-in?”

“There was, yeah, there was one thing I was wonderin’ about. I was thinkin’, it’s either you or the phone book, an’ you’d probably get me a good answer faster, an’ you’d know what you’re talkin’ ’bout, too.”

She didn’t have anything for him right away, but a couple days later called him back with the recommendations she’d dug up, and he made sure to talk to all of them and see who’d get him the most bang for his buck. It didn’t take long, maybe another two days of calling and running all over town, for Scout to find someone he knew he’d be fine with for however long it took. As soon as he got his appointment, he was in a private doctor’s office out in Pacific Heights getting a mold of his teeth, and getting used to the idea of three years of braces.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

He’d gotten a real good tooth cleaning right before the spreaders went on to make it easier for everything his orthodontist wanted to get done down the road. She hadn’t done it herself because cleaning teeth wasn’t her job; Scout had needed to find a dentist, too, and he’d have to go back to that office at least twice a year while the things were in his mouth just to make sure, since he couldn’t do that good a job by himself when they were in there.

The thing was, his teeth now took a lot more work and a lot more appointments to take care of, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford them. And it wasn’t like he minded the appointments – how much it hurt to chew the first days after he got the braces on was one thing, but he liked having a place to go. There was church, sure, and he could go every day of the week if he wanted but usually just Sundays, it felt too weird to be in there alone on Thursday mornings. He usually just went running in the morning. Sometimes he wouldn’t go back home at all until night, he’d just keep running through the whole day, buy lunch from a truck and maybe dinner too, just run and run and run to get the feeling of moving in his body as much as he could. Remember it good and strong even if he wasn’t running to a fight or away from a sticky-bomb, but he wasn’t going anywhere, he was just going. And it felt good to have a place to go.

He was in the orthodontist’s one day, twenty minutes early, waiting to get his lower braces tightened and moved again, and was reading one of the magazines to have something to do when the girl sitting next to him said something.

“What?” Scout looked up from the cover story on the ongoing Soviet splintering to look at her.

“Just saying hi,” she said. “And kind of wondering, how long have you had yours?” When she talked, little bits of green flashed between her lips. 

“Oh, uh, hi then. And just six months.”

“Almost a year. And Charlotte, but Charlie, please.”

Scout took a look at her, smiled, and smoothed his hair back. “Charlie sounds just fine by me.”

She had thin arms and small hands, short brown hair to just over her ears she held back with a bright silver headband, and if she was talking to him, she also had pretty good taste. He remembered what Spy said one time he’d asked him about talking to girls, asked Charlie about herself, and learned eight months was long enough to have braces and forget about them when they didn’t make it hard to eat or sleep. “I remember the first couple of months just lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, and they hurt so much it took me so long, and I had to get up so early in the morning for school, and just – no fun at all.”

“Oh, I hear ya,” Scout said. “The ones in the back, those are worse ’cause there’s no gettin’ around chewing even if you cut up everything into little pieces.”

“Yeah, and those are the ones that keep aching. It’s like, everything still hurts sometimes, and those hurt the longest.”

“Why d’you think that is? I got ’em all over, top an’ bottom, and it’s –”

The receptionist called his name out, just when things were starting to get good with her. He stopped on his way into the back to grab one of the doctor’s business cards and a pen, scribble his number and a name on the back, and hand it over to her. “Hey, it was good talkin’ to you. You wanna keep talkin’ with me, here you go.”

“Oh. Thanks,” she said with a huge smile.

It took her almost three days to give him a call. Not that he was hanging around waiting for one, more that he didn’t know why it’d taken her so long – she could’ve called him that night, or the next day if she had stuff to do, or the one after that – and he almost asked her why, but figured that might not be so great to start a conversation with, and he wanted to talk to her anyway. So he just said hi, how you doin’, and she told him she was fine, classes were great, and he cut to the chase and the next day they met up at a little place down on Masonic he’d run past plenty of times but never went into. “And never with a pretty little girl like you,” he said as he held the door open, and made sure to pay for both their drinks. He got a black coffee, she got a hot chocolate, and they sat by the window and he tried to figure out what to say next.

“So where’s it you go to school? You kept saying you got classes but you never said what they were or where you have ’em.”

“SF State.” Charlie took a sip and moved the cup away fast, then blew on it to cool it off. “And yeah, still undeclared. I’m still thinking about it – maybe English lit, or comparative, Renaissance maybe. It’s a pretty good school for that. I guess I could’ve gone to Sonoma state, but I never really thought about getting out of the city much.”

“That sounds, yeah, that all sounds good, goin’ to college for somethin’ you like.” She’d held her hair back with little pink barrettes this time and put on some more make-up than what she’d had at the office the other day, a bit of dark red around her eyes. It made them look darker, stand out more, and he kind of liked that. “So you come from Frisco?”

“Okay, okay,” she held up a finger and screwed up her face, and he knew that trying-not-to-laugh face. He made a different face right back at her. “Never call it ‘Frisco.’ Never call it that. ‘San Fran’ is okay, the city’s better, San Francisco is fine. But if you call it Frisco – just don’t.” 

“Why not?”

“Nobody’s ever going to think you’re being serious.” Someone pushed the door open and let in a blast of cold March air, and she hunched over and wrapped her hands around her mug. “It’s the biggest sign you’re a tourist that anyone could ever get. It’s like – well, it’s like you’re not caring when you talk about the city. You know?”

“Kinda.”

“Well, where are you from?”

“South Boston.”

She nodded. “It’d be kind of like me just saying that thing about ‘pahk the cah’ the minute you say Boston. Except saying Frisco is worse.”

“Ooof. Okay, gotcha, I gotcha. So you come from San Francisco?”

“Now there we go,” Charlie said with a smile. “Yeah, I do. My parents do, too, and yeah, I could’ve stayed with them, but it’s – I feel like I’m the only one ever saying it’s nicer living on campus.”

“No – well, I ain’t sayin’ that, but livin’ away from home’s nice, and livin’ alone is real nice. Took me nineteen years t’get that, and man, it’d take somethin’ big t’get back to sharin’ full-time.”

“Yeah, I got a single this year and it’s, yeah, it’s just nice.” She smiled into her chocolate before she sipped it. “And what about you?”

“What about me?” Scout took another drink of coffee.

“Well, where’s it you’re going to school?”

“I’m not.”

Her chocolate stopped halfway from her mouth to the table. “Huh?”

“I don’t go t’school. I mean, not like you’re doin’ now. I’m not goin’ to college.”

She blinked a couple of times. “Why not?”

“Wait, what’s it you mean by why not? Why should I oughta be goin’?”

“Look, I mean – sorry, sorry,” she set her chocolate down and looked away and then back. “I mean I just thought you were in school too, you,” she sucked in another breath and Scout just sat and watched her mouth churn. “You look like you’re old enough to be in school, not like you’re working or anything. I’m sorry, I just thought –” 

“Hey, it’s fine, it’s nice you think I look that young. No hard feelin’s, all right?” He reached over and put one of his hand down on hers and got her to look him in the eye. “It’s nice you think I oughta be goin’ t’school, but I don’t want to, so I ain’t goin’. You wanna be goin’, so you’re goin’, and that’s good since you wanna be doin’ it, you don’t gotta feel sorry for me just ’cause I ain’t goin’.”

“Sorry,” she said again quietly, but didn’t move her hand away.

“Charlie, I’m not mad. Don’t worry. So – uh, so why ain’t you declared yourself yet?”

“Oh.” That got her to look more like herself, got her to relax and got him to relax too, and they went back to drinking their drinks and finishing them off and ended up staying at the little table for another half-hour while she talked until they had to go. She talked about reading and how much there was to read, how she always liked talking about it and how she kind of thought she might want to do it for a living like her teachers if she thought she could find a way for it.

“I’d need a PhD, and I’m not sure about that. I’ve heard all these horror stories about the programs, like how they just grind out everything you love while you’re getting the degree.”

“I dunno. I got a friend who’s got a bunch.” He put their dishes in the plastic bin and held the door for her. “They were all in science, though, so I don’t know how different that all is. I know you gotta get up there an’ say somethin’ new, so I guess that’s the same, but it’d be different sayin’ somethin’ new about old French novels than about mechanical engineering or whatever else he’d got.”

“Yeah, pretty much. It’s not like they’re making any new ones.” She pushed her hands down into her pockets as they waited at the bus stop. “I guess someone could discover some great lost manuscript in some attic or a suitcase, but if that doesn’t happen, psssh, everything’s got something said about it.”

“Hey, don’t kid yourself, I’m sure you’d think of somethin’ great to say if someone asked.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at the oncoming bus. “So I had a good time, and I’ll call you.”

“Great. See you, Charlie,” he called as she dashed onto the bus without looking back.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

It only took her one day for her to call him. They talked a lot longer, mostly about her, how she was, the paper she had to write on Finland for her history class. The next time they met was just a couple days after that at a place she’d suggested, another spot in the neighborhood he hadn’t visited yet. He made sure to get to the crêpes place on Cole early and even dug out a nicer pair of pants than what he usually wore, even nicer than what he’d worn to get her coffee. She was dressed nicer too, in a skirt with a top that looked like it matched and her hair slicked back, with a pair of silver earrings hanging down to move and catch the light. Scout held the door for her and got her chair, and smoothed out his shirt before going around and sitting down.

“So how’d you find out about this place, it supposed to be any good?”

“I’ve eaten here a couple times. And one of my friends took one of her dates here too, and she said it worked out nice.”

“Good for her. And good for us, too. It bein’ a real date an’ all, an’ not just coffee, I mean, I’d love to have coffee with you again if you want too, but it’s nice to know it’s gettin’ more serious an’ all.”

“Yeah, it kinda is.” They went to reading the menus, and about a minute later she asked, “When did you move to the city, anyway?”

“Last September.”

“Really,” she smiled. “So how much of it have you seen?”

“Some. Not much yet. Gettin’ out and gettin’ around’s something I try to do as much as I can, see what’s there. I haven’t been t’much of the big stuff yet, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, you know, the postcard stuff, but I’m gettin’ around to it. You’re from here, maybe you should tell me what I gotta go see first, besides nice places t’eat dinner with pretty girls like you.”

That got her to blush and giggle, and Scout counted that as a success. Right then the waitress came by, and from her accent Scout knew he could keep on showing off.

_“The Greek Delight for her, and the Chicken Pesto for me, please.”_

Charlie looked at him with her eyes wide open, the eyeshadow making them look even wider, and Scout fought to keep from grinning ear to ear.

“You speak French?”

“Just a bit. Not enough to have a decent conversation or anythin’, just enough to know how it’s supposed to sound an’ ask for somethin’ in a restaurant. An’ I know if someone’s insultin’ my mother or me.”

“Does that come up a lot?”

“Ah, um.” He closed his mouth and tried to think of the right thing to say when he’d open it again. “Not as much as it used to.”

“Can you say anything flirty?”

“No – wait, yeah, I know one thing. Vos lobes d’oreilles sont comme des têtes de poisson.”

She giggled. “And you know what that means?”

“Nah, he just said it was somethin’ nice t’say to pretty girls.”

“Who did?”

“Oh, this guy I used t’work with. He taught me some French.”

She leaned forward, crossing her arms and resting her elbows on the table. “Tell me about him.”

“He taught me some French.”

Scout was glad the dinner crêpes came just a little bit later and he could get Charlie to start talking about her classes and what she was reading. They traded bites, and split an apple crêpe for dessert, and they both agreed that the coffee was better at the shop down on Haight, but it was good enough they didn’t mind too much. When it came, Scout got the check, and Charlie made a face.

“What?”

“I should at least pay for the tip.”

“Is that what they’re doin’ now?” He laughed, then stopped suddenly at Charlie’s new face. “I mean, it ain’t like that, I mean, is that what they’re doin’ now here in the city, in Boston you’re supposed to get the dinner if you’re a guy takin’ the girl out, it’s just how they do things back there, here, see, the tip ain’t much, you got the cash for it?”

“Yeah, I, yeah I’ve got that.” She took out a couple bills and put them in the folder next to Scout’s signature.

He didn’t kiss her good-night, just walked her to the nearest bus stop and said it instead, giving her a hug like they’d shared at the beginning of the date. Some things were new and he didn’t know them until he saw them, but some things were still the same and he liked knowing those, he liked knowing he still knew them. He liked knowing he’d better wait until their next date to tell Engie anything, because if he knew Engie he’d like to wait to hear about Scout picking up a girl to make sure he was serious about her.

When Charlie called him the next day, Scout told her he wanted a long afternoon with her, someplace they could hang out and talk, so they met up down near the end of the city at the Ferry Building. It was right around noon on a Thursday so there weren’t many people around, just some business guys getting lunch. Scout got there early again, but Charlie came prepared and knew exactly where she was taking him – leading him about six blocks up Market Street to a bookstore Scout couldn’t really believe, shelves of books going all the way to the back of the building and more floors of them up and down, with a spiral staircase going both ways. He couldn’t stop himself from looking all over the place while he followed Charlie, listened to her talk about coming to Stacey’s as a kid and it being an adventure while she grabbed one book here and another there. She had four when they got to the register and when the clerk asked if they were a gift, she smiled and pointed to Scout. “They’re for him.”

She handed the bag right over before Scout could do or say anything embarrassing, and he couldn’t do anything but take them. He pulled them out of the bag and checked the titles and authors, and suddenly felt a little better. “Hey, I’ve heard of this guy.”

“Leon Chaim Bach?”

“Yeah, him. Ain’t he supposed to be really good?”

“Yeah, he is. One of the modern American greats, except he hasn’t written anything in like fifteen years. I think I’d have heard if he died, though, so I guess he’s just retired.”

“Cool, that’s cool I guess, dunno how you’d retire from writing, anyway – so we’re goin’ somewhere for lunch?”

They got sandwiches and fresh lemonades back down at the Ferry Building and ate them on benches looking at the Bay while Charlie talked about the other books she’d gotten him, the ones she’d read in her classes that semester. When they were done with their food they walked up on the Embarcadero, past the fountain with the weird twisting block sculpture that she said had ice skating in winter, along with the water on one side and the trolleys going past on the other and the tourists going all around, just talking until an orange trolley went past and he caught the name of the city on the side.

“Hey, it’s from Boston too!”

“Yeah, they’ve got all these cable cars around from all over the world, there’s one from Switzerland and a couple from England. They keep old San Francisco ones running, too. You wanna run and catch it? It’s not –”

Scout took off, clutching his books to his chest as he pounded the pavement, beating feet, beating the car to its next stop with minutes to spare for Charlie to catch up. He grinned at her when she finally did, coming right up with the trolley, and she paid with her student ID pass and he dug out the right change from his wallet and then led them to the back of the car to sit together, let them have the long bench in the back all to themselves.

“So where’s this thing go? Actually, never mind, that doesn’t matter, let’s ride it around ’till it gets back here. You know I used to ride these, not this one I don’t think I did an’ I couldn’t say if it was this one but these cars, here you take the window, I’d ride ’em sometimes, not too much but it was so much nicer than the buses if I was on a route they were on an’ I was too tired or sore t’run home, run all the way home if I was really far away, I don’t really ride these much, not this one, not these Boston ones, just these cars, it’s kinda nice t’ride on one sometimes.”

Charlie nodded and tucked a tiny strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, they’re nice to – oh hey, right there, Fog City Diner.”

“What? Show me.” Scout pushed around to see the shiny trolley-shaped building she was pointing at. She kept showing him different things as the car went on the route, when it passed by the Telegraph Hill and they could see the tower, when she could almost see the triangle building and told him about the place in the Italian neighborhood that made everything with garlic, and when the car stopped a few minutes to turn around she talked all about growing up in the city and on the way back Scout talked about growing up in Boston as best he could. There was a lot he couldn’t say, and some stuff he could tell her if he figured out the right way to say it, remembered all the right euphemisms and the right lies he’d learned way back when, and by the time they got back to Market Street she had to get off to catch a bus to get back to campus. And this time, she let him give her a good-bye kiss.

He’d figured if it was serious enough she was getting him books he could kiss her, three dates felt like it’d be enough, they’d sometimes waited even longer for kissing when he was a kid and if three dates wasn’t how they did it now then he’d just say that was how they did it in Boston. So he’d waited until the bus was close enough to see but still a good way away, and he looked Charlie right in the eye and told her, “I had a real nice time with you today.”

“Thanks, me too.”

Scout smiled, and leaned down, and she didn’t lean away, and they had to be careful kissing because of the braces, but they still kissed nice and soft. He’d almost forgotten how good it was, he hadn’t had a real kiss from a girl in ages, hookers didn’t count, Charlie counted. They didn’t do anything but kiss carefully lips to lips, they didn’t have time because the bus came by, but it was plenty, and they next time they saw each other they kissed hello, and when they left they kissed good-bye, real nice.

She didn’t have class the next day and he didn’t have anything he was supposed to do, just one thing he really wanted to do.

There were plenty of people all over the place, kids and teenagers and some people that looked his age and some people his age that looked it, the whole library quiet and hushed the way they always were, no matter where they were or who was in them. It was nice that hadn’t changed since he’d been a kid – he still remembered going to the one in his neighborhood with his mom when he was too little for school and his brothers and dad were busy, and going there when he got older, before he’d started running to fights, when one of his brothers had to watch him for an afternoon and couldn’t afford to take him anyplace else. He started wandering through the shelves and past all the books, the kids’ section tucked away off in its own little room, a little table showing off some stuff that’d just come out, posters of paintings and drawings of people reading framed and hanging around underneath the windows right up at the edge of the walls below the ceilings. Scout recognized a couple of them from his mom’s old books, and started to look for where they kept the books she’d have been interested in.

Nobody was talking except someone at the reference desk and even she was being quiet, and there was a librarian pushing the book cart to put some stuff back on the stacks, the wheels creaking a little even on the faded orange carpet. Someone was looking up something at the computer catalog station, a computer even smaller than what his broker had, and he watched the green letters walk up and down the black screen until the guy found what he was looking for and left. It took Scout a couple of tries to figure out how to ask it for what he wanted, asking for books about art got him too much and asking for books about painting got him how-to stuff, but asking for books about American painting got it to give him something he could use.

Not anything he could take home, not until he did this one thing first.

“Hey, Mrs. Attfield?” She looked up from her computer typing, pretty much looking like librarians had looked when he was a kid, hair up in a bun and glasses even if she was wearing a dress which didn’t cover everything up and down her arms, plus she was a whole lot younger than all the ones he remembered with her hair a lot darker and not so many lines on her face, but she was still the lady people talked to for them to get their library stuff done. “Yeah, I moved here a while ago and I was wondering, what’s it I gotta do these days t’get a library card for this place?”

“Oh, that’s real easy.” She smiled and pushed her chair so she slid across the floor to the other side of the big long desk. “Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Uh…”

“Well, if you don’t, then you just need to bring in some mail to show your residence address and an ID, fill out this form – you have some with you?”

“I need t’have what now?”

“Some mail. Bill, letter, something showing you live where you live.”

“I – hang on, I don’t have anything with me, but I’ll be right back.”

Twenty minutes was all he needed to run home and grab one of Engie’s letters, turn around and bring it back so he could show it off to Mrs. Attfield, have someone back him up and prove it when he said where he was living. He didn’t have a driver’s license but his military ID – not his old one, the real one he’d gotten back in 1966 after he’d turned eighteen and gotten drafted, the new one he’d gotten two years ago when the war ended, the one Miss Pauling helped him get his hands on – worked fine to show he was who he said he was. Mrs. Attfield looked a little surprised when he slid that over the desk. Scout just smirked and pulled out his dogtags. “An’ how’s these for ID, they good enough for ya?”

“They’re very impressive.” She stared a minute, took a breath, then gave him the ID card back and started typing stuff into her computer from what he’d written down. After that it didn’t take her much longer to print out a little card, and for him to sign it.

“So how long do I gotta wait for this to kick in an’ let me use it?”

“No time at all. It’s valid as soon as you signed it.”

“Hey, thanks.”

He hadn’t been able to get to sleep the night before even with the radio, even with his mother’s art books, so he’d read through about half of the Eleanor Beckstein book Charlie got for him, until he was feeling tired enough to try sleeping again. It was good enough that he wanted to finish it soon, and she’d written something that came right after it, so he checked out that one plus a couple of the art books that could come home with him and not just stay in the library all the time. The ones he’d grabbed had a lot of stuff he knew by now from his mother’s books but these had more stuff from Africa and Asia than hers. They had some stuff about old art from Australia, even, real old art, stuff he didn’t think they’d share. Would’ve been nice to call up Sniper and ask him about it, if he knew what number to call.

Scout wrote a letter to Engineer instead, letting him know he’d finally gotten a library card a couple days after he’d gotten it – long enough to get a real good kiss from Charlie when he showed it off the next time he saw her.

Engineer was the only one out of everyone who had an address he could use. Who had the same address he could use, at least. Hardhat was the only one who’d stuck around and stayed living where he’d lived during the war. Even Demo had changed his address when he’d moved back to Scotland, but at least he had an address Scout could still send stuff to if he wanted. He’d written both of them when he’d moved in after he’d finally gotten some cards and stamps. It wasn’t like he could write to anyone else.

Medic sold his place in Chicago and as far as Scout knew from Engie’s reports, he and Heavy were still on their big Europe tour, all the big cities, Vienna and Venice and Copenhagen, and would let them know the minute they settled. But it’d been long enough Scout had stopped waiting. The last letter he sent to Sniper’s PO Box came back stamped he’d sent it wrong, that box wasn’t being used by that person anymore, and Scout just threw the letter into the trash. He’d even gone to check out the PO Box in case Sniper left something in there for him, like out of some old kid’s book where friends tracked each other down from clues left for mysteries, so after they’d said good-bye they could say hello again, but it turned out it’d been bought by someone from Oakland before Scout ever decided to leave Boston.

He’d never gotten an address from Pyro, no matter how much he’d asked, no matter how much he’d tried to explain he just wanted to be nice and send her a letter on Christmas if they weren’t spending it together on a base. Soldier hadn’t given him one either, just a rant on Ben Franklin fucking half of France and government-organized monopolies as a part of a trusting relationship with their constituents, he didn’t really remember all the details. Spy had kept his a mystery too, and Scout had overheard Hardhat make Spy promise him he’d write as soon as he settled down someplace, near the end of the war, but since he hadn’t said anything, Scout figured Spy was still sneaking around somewhere.

Engineer had also been the only one to keep the same phone number, and he’d promised Scout that anytime he wanted to talk it’d be fine. He finally took him up on that when Charlie gave him that first good kiss after he showed off his library card. It’d finally gotten serious enough to call someone and tell them – before it’d just been them fooling around, just a couple of kids, but when she kissed him like that, Scout knew he had to share.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

When he finally brought Charlie home with him, just a couple weeks after he got his library card – and he hadn’t thought it’d be so fast but there’d been a couple times one of his brothers told him about times it’d gone even faster than this – when he held the door for her, she stopped right in the foyer just looking around. “Wow.”

“Yeah, I know, an’ I’m glad you think so too, here c’mon lemme give you the tour, you wouldn’t believe the view on this place, just follow me an’ here we go, here’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Around noon the sun started to come out and by two all the fog had burned off, and Scout knew he and Charlie were just in time for a huge, perfect sunset just for them out on his little balcony. She followed right after him, eyes opening wide and staring out all the way to the ocean, and she didn’t say anything. “I didn’t just buy it for the view, but c’mon, a view like this you’d live in a closet t’get.”

“Pretty much.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the railing, crossing her wrists and looking over at Scout. “There’s some dorms with views like this, and everyone and I mean everyone tries to get one, they’re seniors-only so maybe in a couple years, I’ll get lucky.”

“An’ here I thought we were getting’ lucky tonight.”

She snorted a laugh through her nose, then let out a giggle from her mouth. “Yeah, I was thinking that too.”

It felt like being in a movie, kissing on a balcony with a sunset, and Scout knew if the fog hadn’t gone they’d be kissing on the couch and that would’ve been great, just kissing her was great, and kissing her like in the movies was even better. He hadn’t gotten onto giving her that tour of the place but it wasn’t hard to take her right to his bedroom and to keep on kissing. They had to stop to get out of their clothes right to their underwear, and they didn’t start again right away, instead taking a minute to look at parts of each other they hadn’t seen yet. Scout reached around and undid her bra, and she laughed. “You know most guys don’t know how to do that?”

“I got practice,” he smirked, and took her right breast and gave it a little squeeze. It made her sigh in a good way that went right to his dick, so he did it again to make her sigh that way again and she did, and they started rubbing against each other, lying down on the mattress, and all his brothers had been right about what they’d said about college girls. Scout reared up to his knees, hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers, then stopped. “Hang on, be right back, just one little minute.” He’d had condoms in the bathroom since he’d moved in, and these – he checked the expiration date just to be sure – yeah, these were still good. Charlie helped him get it on, and holy shit, he’d forgotten how good this was. Scout didn’t even try to think how long it’d been, probably not since just after the end of the war, way too long.

Charlie was smooth and warm, even through the condom she felt so good, and he wrapped his arms around her and moaned against her neck, getting to her as close as he could. Scout felt her legs come up to wrap around him and that sent something running down his spine. He started thrusting harder and she gave a little high moan, he tried changing the angle and slowing down but that didn’t work because he couldn’t focus on that, what he was doing and what he wanted to be doing. All he could do was moan right back to her and thrust in deep, just let himself feel how good it was and come fast and hard, whimper a little bit when he was done coming. He lay on top of her a moment and then pulled out, dropping the condom off by the side of the bed, then flopped down on his back and sighed. “Man.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, that was – wait. You, did you, I mean did you have a good time, you sounded like you were an’ I hope you did –”

“No, it was – well, I’ve had some where…” She sighed again and looked at Scout. “You were fine.”

“Better than fine, come on! I’m good at this! You didn’t have a good time, you let me know, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Really?” Her eyes went big.

“Promise you, let me know.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay.” She flipped onto her side and took a deep breath. “Well, I had this one boyfriend last year, nothing serious, not like this, but he did this one thing where he’d do it if I asked really nicely. It was, you know.” She ran a hand down his arm. “He’d go. Down on me.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“You want me t’go down on you, like, give you head go down on you?”

“Yeah.”

“You really want it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I, ah – all right, yeah, let’s do this, let’s do it, I got this.” He crawled down in between her legs she spread wide for him and looked at her bush, then a little lower where he’d just been inside her. “You sure? I mean, the braces an’ all, this might not be so great, there might be somethin’ else –”

“No, this. I want you to do this.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “If you keep your lips over your teeth it should be okay, right?”

“Right. Yeah, okay.” He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Scout kept his lips over his teeth, reached out with his tongue, his dick had been in a condom so there wasn’t anything to worry about there, put his hand on Charlie’s thigh to feel a little better about it and started to try going at it. She didn’t taste bad and she didn’t smell bad – the whole thing smelled and tasted fine. He kept licking, trying out different ways to do it, and it didn’t take him long to figure out keeping his tongue on that little button and his fingers inside her was the best thing to do, he’d always been good at giving girls a good time.

This hadn’t existed when he was a kid and his brothers were telling him about condoms and college girls. Back then, guys stuck their dick in a girl and maybe pawed at what she had between her legs if she let them feel her up all the way. Nobody but nobody put their mouth down there, and nobody but nobody had anything but jokes and stupid bullcrap to say about what it smelled and tasted like. It was all stupid bullcrap. She didn’t smell like anything in any joke; she smelled fine.

Charlie came with a little shout and a longer whimper, and a huge strong pulsing around his fingers. Scout wiped them off on the sheets and moved up to lie down next to her. She opened her eyes and looked at him like he hadn’t been looked at in years, like he was something amazing, which he was, he knew that, and it was good when other people knew that too. Then she smiled at him, her whole body relaxing when she stopped trembling, and they kissed with their lips closed tight to keep their braces from getting tangled with each other.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

It was one of those cold spring days that every city got, not just San Francisco, the ones that wanted to tip back to winter instead of going on ahead to summer. Scout knew the mornings were the best part of them, with the cold that settled on top of his skin without going in deep, the air all fresh and sharp and almost cutting as he ran through it. After a few hours of sun the days would always warm up a little, enough to remind everyone summer was on its way in, but early in the morning, before most people were up and moving, it was cold enough to let him enjoy how it felt to warm up as he ran. 

He hadn’t slept well the night before, even with the radio on and a book from the library about John James Audubon and his huge hunting expeditions, and he’d woken up almost before it got light out when it wasn’t worth it to try to get back to sleep. So he’d just grabbed his shoes, thrown on a jacket, and ran out the door to get moving through the cold morning air. He’d started by going straight out to the Pacific and then making a sharp right once he hit beach, running up on the sand for a while until he ran out of beach and he had to head up the hills. Switching from concrete to sand had made him stumble for a couple of steps, and so did switching back, but he got his footing back – stay on the toes and lean into the running, straighten up and set the whole foot down – when he remembered how he was supposed to do it, his feet and body remembering before his brain did. 

The running path was almost empty, almost nobody was out on the highway, just a few people who’d also gotten up early or still hadn’t gone to bed. Nobody was stopping, either, everyone and him on their way to get somewhere or keep on moving even if they weren’t going anywhere – almost nobody, everybody but two guys about twice his age up at Land’s End that Scout had to stop and watch because he’d never seen anyone stretch like that. They were doing it together and didn’t turn around to see him, so he just parked himself against a tree, checked his pulse and breathing, and kept watching them. Weird stretches he’d never seen anyone do before, kind of like stuff he’d seen Spy do a couple times after missions with a lot of really long nights when they had a base to themselves, and some of it just stuff he didn’t know people could do if they weren’t in a circus. Maybe that’s where they’d learned to do all that, the feet-on-the-head things and the bending-all-the-way-over-backwards things and the lying-on-the-hands things. It was almost a relief when they moved back to handstands; at least that he knew how people did, even if he didn’t know how to do it himself. The way they did it didn’t make it look –

“Hey, man –” 

Scout’s pulse shot up and he spun around to see a guy coming out of the bushes, some guy in torn, ragged clothes who looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week or shaved for two, heading right towards him. “Hey, listen, I was –”

“Whatever it is, no.” He started moving away.

“No, you gotta believe me, this ain’t me, I just –”

Christ, he could smell the guy, he outta run out of here, just speed away, and Scout knew he could outrun him but he couldn’t make his feet listen to his brain, they just took one step after another without getting going and the guy was coming towards him even faster. “There ain’t nothin’ I got for you, no cash no nothin’ so don’t even ask, just bug off and leave me alone.”

“I just need a minute, just gimme a moment –”

And the guy was right there, almost in his face, reaching out to him – Scout slapped his hand away and the guy said something else and reached back, and Scout’s body remembered before his brain did just what he was supposed to do when someone was coming towards him, whether it was the BLU Heavy or their Soldier or even their Demo with a scimitar swinging around his head, and that was charge right back at them. Try to get their face first, get their face and they’d fall down, if they didn’t go for their sides, behind the ribs and underneath and in-between in their soft places, spin around and keep running. If they didn’t go down right away he wouldn’t get close enough for them to hit him again until he saw another place to hit them again, grab their face and bring up a knee to get the nose again, get them down onto their knees and get out his pistol and – he didn’t have his pistol with him. Scout spent a moment groping around his pockets and trying to find his bag on the empty space on his back before he remembered he didn’t have them with him. He didn’t have any of his guns, none of his bats, nothing to kill anyone. This wasn’t Hightower or Nightfall on a mission, this was Land’s End in San Francisco.

Scout looked around, at the ocean he could see through the warped and gnarly pine trees and the sky just lightening up, branches moving in the wind that wasn’t getting any warmer. The guys who’d been stretching were looking at him and talking too quiet for him to hear, and a couple of cars passed right by without stopping, and crap, he’d gotten blood on his jacket. And he really liked this jacket. “Christ,” he swore under his breath. “Look at this, you got blood right on the cuff,” he told the guy wheezing on the ground. The two stretching guys were still looking at him when Scout remembered his feet and what they were supposed to do, how they were supposed to work. He took off right back towards the city and didn’t stop until he got to the little convenience store five blocks from his house to get a couple bottles of hydrogen peroxide.

Back home, scrubbing the cuff in cold water in the bathroom sink – cold water to get the stain moving, hydrogen peroxide to get the blood out – he remembered when Spy had complained about blood on his tie and it’d been Medic and Pyro who’d said, “Hydrogen peroxide” at the exact same time, nobody practicing it, nobody planning it, just it coming out and timed perfectly without anyone trying, and everyone stood around staring for a moment before they all laughed. And it worked, too; after a few minutes of scrubbing and washing and scrubbing again all the blood was out.

He wore it again the next day, when he took Charlie out for dinner at the Clement Street Bar and Grill, and wrapped it around her shoulders on the walk back to his place. One of those cold spring nights that happened even when summer was on its way in, one of those nights that seemed like they only happened in San Francisco.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

After their first time, Scout began stashing condoms in the bedroom to make sure they had some right there when they needed one. He didn’t get too many chances to use them, since the third time they went to fuck Charlie found his pistol and that was the end of it.

They’d gone on another date, a Friday night real proper date with him wearing nice pants and a good shirt and her in a dress, and it’d gone pretty good for them both. They each had some wine, Charlie sipping hers very gently and smiling the whole time, and Scout picked up everything including the tip. Walking back to his place talking about translations and how words could mean the same thing but also different things – he’d read a couple of the books she’d recommended last time that hadn’t been written in English to begin with – he realized he knew what Spy had been talking about that one time at Thunder Mountain he’d heard him chatting with Sniper. And he knew that look in her eyes, the one that said she was pretty happy being with him, and he liked seeing that look. 

They’d gotten naked already, had been rolling around on his bed kissing and rubbing against each other through their underwear a while, and she’d been the one to roll over to get to his bedside table to get the condoms. Scout had pulled his boxers off and was waiting for her to roll back over and join him except she wasn’t, and when he looked at her she’d gone still, just holding herself there and staring at something. He got up onto his knees to see and – “Oh, okay, um, this does not –”

“What the hell is this doing here?” she asked in a small, high voice, her eyes on what was in the middle drawer, not the one on top.

“It’s – you can leave it, come on, the condoms are in the next drawer up, here, c’mon.” He leaned over her and moved a hand down to close the drawer but she pressed back against him, keeping it open. Scout knew he could’ve forced it in but she was putting up a fight, and just her putting up a fight was worth something. So he moved off. She closed it on her own and shrugged against him, hard enough that he moved off to sit on his knees on the other side of the bed with his balls going blue and her looking at him like he’d done something wrong.

“Why do you have that?”

“What? Whaddya mean, why do I have that?”

“Why the hell,” she took a deep breath and sat up. “Why do you have a gun in your bedroom?”

“Why wouldn’t I keep it in here? I can’t keep it in the kitchen or the garage, no way am I keepin’ it in the bathroom.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, why do you have that at all, why’d you even think you’d need one –”

“Huh?”

She was up on her knees too, looking down at them and the comforter she was sitting on, not looking at Scout or anywhere near him, looking away with her shoulders in and making herself small.

“Come on, Charlie, it’s just a gun.”

That got her to look at him right in the eye. “Just a gun?”

“Okay, it ain’t just a gun, it’s a Walther PPK point-three-eighty ACP, and anyway, you don’t need t’be worried, it ain’t even loaded.”

“Why – why do you…” She looked away from him, around the room, biting her lip. “Where did you – why would you have it at all? Just – no, you don’t need to tell me, it’s not like you would.”

“What the hell is your problem here?” He lashed out and grabbed her arm, but she yanked out of his grip and rolled off the bed, and started getting dressed. “Look, I don’t see what’s freakin’ you out about this, it’s, you know I was in the army, you know these scars, these dogtags ain’t for show, why the hell wouldn’t I have a gun?”

“I don’t know!” Charlie shouted while she put on her pants and hooked up her bra. “Why the hell would you?” After she found her shirt she pulled it on and didn’t turn around to look at Scout. He watched her head drop down, her shoulders falling, and she sounded like all the fight was gone from her just like that. “We don’t – I think this is it. This should be it, right? We gotta call it here.”

“Wait, hang on a moment, you mean this is it? You’re callin’ it quits on me just ’cause I got a gun in my bedroom?”

“No,” she half-laughed. “Yeah. No and yes. Sure, whatever you want it to be. I’m just –” Charlie sighed and looked at him from over her shoulder, not turning around, like she couldn’t go the whole way to face him. “You get these things sometimes, like this psycho thing sometimes, and if I ask you then you say they never happened, or I’ll try to say something or ask something and then you’ll just go past it or ignore it or never say anything about it or answer me and I’m tired of that.”

“So if I –”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll grab a bus.”

She started to walk out and Scout dashed after her. “Charlie, what the hell? You’re just goin’?”

“Yeah, I am.” She sat on the couch and began getting her shoes on. “It was fun, but – it’s been fun. Okay?” There was a lot of pleading in her voice, like he’d pleaded with the BLU Sniper to not shank him even when he knew he’d be getting shanked anyway. “Can we keep it at it being fun? Leave it like that? We’re probably going to run into each other at the orthodontist’s, can we keep it where it won’t get too bad?”

“I don’t wanna leave this at anything, I want it t’keep goin’.”

“It’s not going anywhere.” Charlie got up and finally looked him right in the eye. “I never thought it would, and – it never would, or it can, shit,” she muttered, then looked back up again. “Just – I’ll go.”

Scout watched her walk out, then when she got to the door, yelled, “Yeah, well, don’t let me kiss you good-night or anything!”

Charlie smiled all soft and sad, then blew him a kiss and left. He stood there, wondering just how he’d fucked it up, then decided that figuring that out could wait until his balls weren’t aching so blue they could’ve defected to the other side.

Jerking off in the shower and finishing all the beer left in the fridge helped him get to where he knew he’d be able to fall asleep without having to try too hard. He kept the radio on anyway, curled up on his side and feeling everything move when he twitched a hand or a foot, not looking over where Charlie’d slept the times she’d spent the night, listening to a woman who’d been dead a long time sing and sing about sad things, nothing but sad things, and that made him feel a little better.

Another cold shower in the morning helped get him going, out of bed and out the door, running like he hadn’t in almost a month, just staying moving and not turning around or looking back. Nothing was there for him back at his place right now, nothing keeping him from keeping on going another hour, another couple of hours. Going all over the city, finally heading out to Charlie’s school – not to find her, just to find where she went to college since she’d never gotten around to giving him a tour. He ran across the place and between the buildings, dodging past all the students and teachers, every one of them moving so slow, all the buildings big and fancy like the ones downtown.

He kept going through the school and through the city until he ran out of city and hit water, and then turned around and ran until he hit water again. Down south from the Ferry Building, not going right there but close enough, and when he hit the bay he finally stopped. There wasn’t a whole lot of people out walking, just a couple guys in suits and some tourists and him. Scout got as close to the water as he could, leaning his elbows on the fence by the walkway path and feeling the wind play with his hair, squinting to get a better view out to Treasure Island and the cars going on the Bay Bridge. He’d managed to come over right during high tide and that and the wind had all the water hitting hard and loud, the spray going up high to near his feet. He hadn’t gone swimming since right before he moved here from Boston, in the Atlantic Ocean or anywhere else, and it’d been summer then. It was summer now but days like this in San Francisco, with no sun and plenty of wind, you got cold if you got in the water and didn’t keep moving. And not snow-winter cold, water-cold, the kind that took forever to get warm from. Probably the only really big cold he’d get living here.

Scout turned around and ran back home. When he got there he started up another pot of coffee, good and strong the way it ought to be, and by the time it was done his whole house smelled great. He poured out a mug and drank it looking out at the Pacific Ocean and the fog rolling in.

It was a nice gun. He knew it was a nice gun. He’d used it to kill enough people enough times to know how nice a gun it was. And it was his, something he’d gotten for himself, something that he’d kept through the end of the war. He was glad about RED taking some of its stuff back since that meant he wasn’t lugging around the doc’s Übercharge gears strapped to his heart anymore. Let them keep their stuff like that, but his gun was his own. It meant more now than it did back then, not just as a reminder of where it’d come from, but that death was for keeps out here.

He went back inside, closing the door behind him, the smell of coffee hitting him again, but instead of getting another cup, he set the mug down by the sink and kept going past the coffeepot to get to the phone. Engineer picked up after four rings, and after Scout got the hellos and the lecture on how he ought to call more than twice a year and how things were going with them both, they started talking about what it was that’d made Scout call.

“Sorry t’hear that. She sounded like a real nice girl, from what you wrote me.”

“Yeah, well, she was, but then she went all crazy on me, flipping out, an’ I ain’t even really sure why but –”

“Now hold on. Back this up an’ tell me what it was that set this whole thing goin’.”

“An’ I don’t even get it, I mean, what was she goin’ on about?”

“You’ll have t’be the one t’tell me.”

“Okay, so we’re in my bed, ready t’be doin’ it, and she’s about to get me a rubber, I got all the lectures don’t worry they’re all fresh, she’s goin’ for one but gets the wrong drawer so instead she finds my pistol, then she freaks, then she just gets all her stuff an’ leaves. An’ she wouldn’t even say, just leavin’ without even givin’ me a reason why she’s goin –”

“Think you could take a moment t’back up an’ provide a sliver of context for this? You’re sayin’ she manages t’accidentally uncover your pistol and that’s when she starts makin’ a fuss.”

“Yeah.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m sorry but I’ve gotta take her side on this one.”

Scout froze in his pacing. “What? Didya just say what I think ya just said?”

“In all likelihood. You’re tellin’ me you never once told her you were keepin’ your pistol in your bedroom?”

“I’m not keepin’ it loaded.”

“That don’t make a difference. I know you’re a good kid, but it just ain’t responsible to be dealin’ with your guns like that. I don’t care how good you are with one in your hand, when you’ve got a guest over in that, well, that particular set of circumstances, you’ve got t’be sensible and serious about the whole dealing. An’ that means not lettin’ her stumble over it just ’cause she opened the wrong drawer.”

“Yeah, well,” Scout glared down at the sink.

“It’s not the smallest thing t’spring on someone. You honestly should’ve let her know soon as she came over, make sure she wasn’t gettin’ it sprung –”

“Yeah, but why’d it bother her? It was just her not knowin’ it was there?”

“Listen, I ain’t gonna offer any sorta conjecture, the best I can do is extrapolate from what you’ve provided, an’ it sounds like there might’ve been more than that.” He sighed and Scout could almost see him wiping his face with his free hand. “She was askin’ why you had it, right?”

“So what if she was? I try explainin’ I was in the army, don’t worry I didn’t break contract, I tell her there ain’t a good reason t’not have a gun around, she just goes on about how I’m always actin’ weird t’her, an’ she doesn’t even gimme a good example of what it is I’m doin’ that she says is all psycho, but yeah, she was askin’ why.” He started pacing. “So I tell her it’s stayin’ in the bedroom ’cause I can’t keep it in th’kitchen or the bathroom, an’ that doesn’t help –”

“If she was askin’ why you had a gun t’start with, it ain’t why it’s in the bedroom, it’s why you’ve got one at all. Some people, bless them, just don’t manage t’understand what a gun’s for or why someone would care t’own some, an’ from what I can determine, this Charlie seems t’be one of ’em. Now, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, but surprisin’ her like that, me, I ain’t surprised she just up and left.”

“But –”

“You’re the one who moved t’Hippieville.”

Scout finally laughed for the first time that day. “Guess I should’ve told her sooner, right?”

“Seems that’s a reasonable proposition.”

“Yeah.” He sighed again, staring out the window at the red paint on the house next door. “Yeah.”

“Why in the name a’Sam Hill did you move out there? I’m sure you’ve told me before but I still can’t quite wrap my head ’round it.”

“You come here an’ I can show you. It ain’t easy t’say over the phone, you can’t talk about the fog right over th’phone, that’s somethin’ you gotta see.”

“Maybe. I might well take you up on that offer someday.”

“That big project you got still givin’ you a hard time?”

“I gotta keep busy an’ wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Scout sighed. “You gotta get back to it?”

“Not right away. Got a little time before the cultures need a check-up.”

“Nah, you go, I’m feelin’ pretty good here. You’re…you’re just always real good at this, gettin’ things so they make more sense. Thanks.”

“You take care now.”

“You too.”

Even after he finished the rest of the coffee out on the balcony, fog settling in for the evening, it still wasn’t all that late, which meant he was able to squeeze in another run – heading back out, letting Hardhat’s words shake around in his head as he moved his body. Beating feet, running up to the top of the city at the Golden Gate Bridge and weaving his way through the Presidio to take the long way back. When he got there, wet from the fog, from sweating, it would’ve been too late for delivery back in Boston but some places did everything all night here. Scout tipped the guy fifteen for coming out past midnight and had to stop himself from asking what he’d do if he found out his girlfriend had a gun of her own hidden off in a drawer somewhere.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

For an army base, the Presidio had some seriously awful security. People could just drive on through– and maybe that part wasn’t the army’s fault, what with the Golden Gate Bridge and all. But nobody stopped people from running through the place, either. The parts of it up inside the city didn’t have anything serious to guard them, just stuff like chain-link fences and waist-high stone walls, and that was where they had fences and walls. Some of it was just open trees and grass where anyone could sneak in and hide in the bushes to watch the new recruits run through drills.

Scout hadn’t hid in the bushes when he’d caught them at it, just stayed still to watch, and he’d only stayed for about five minutes until he’d had enough of old memories and went back to running down the city streets. He didn’t see any recruits this time, but he wasn’t coming around looking for any – he’d asked at the library if the Presidio had a shooting range and then asked for its address, and he’d had his dogtags out when he’d asked to make sure they took him seriously. He figured if anyone wanted to know why he was coming out here looking for the shooting range it’d be people who’d understand why he kept a pistol in his bedside table.

They had an outdoor range too, but that wasn’t open this time of year or it needed cleaning or some bullshit thing that meant he was doing his shooting inside. But even so, he was doing his shooting and he was okay with that. It didn’t seem like that big a building as shooting ranges went, he’d been in a couple that’d belonged to RED for testing stuff they’d wanted him to take onto the field. Those could’ve handled the whole building plus the outdoor area a couple of times and still have room left over for dessert. But this place was just for guns, not guns plus flamethrowers, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and syringe guns, and everything that everybody used that wasn’t in anyone else’s regulations. And this place smelled right, too, that right gunpowder zest, the scuff on the concrete floor, old posters that’d probably been there since he’d been drafted.

He had to hand over his pistol to get it inspected when he got inside and rent a pair of goggles plus an ear headset too, something about as big as his old earpiece that went over both ears and not just one. The whole thing was pretty much petty little rules and regs, he’d been shooting his pistol for about as long as the officer inspecting it had been alive, but he had to get through it to get to the range. If he wanted some shooting practice, this was the only place in the whole goddamn city to shoot a gun, and if he had to keep his mouth shut to get out to the lane he was willing to do that.

Since he wasn’t coming with someone else, it was someone whose job was to make sure Scout didn’t do anything stupid or dumb that came out to the range with him. That was in the big sign of rules on the wall behind him and in the hall and out by the front desk too. And really, it was pretty okay to have someone watching him. It wasn’t like he wanted to ignore the guy or anything, since right now his job was just watching Scout, which Scout knew was a damn fine job for anyone to have, especially when his job happened to be for something like this.

Scout smiled, pulled on all the gear, planted his feet and took aim and fired. And he couldn’t stop laughing as he kept pulling the trigger. Over and over, twelve times fast and then reloading and twelve times more again. He felt those shots all the way down to his feet and up to the top of his head. Even through the headset he could hear everything all perfect, that smell he’d gotten a little of out in the hallway and finally had back under his nose, the sharp metal smell of gunpowder that he’d have on his hands for days, something to hold onto to remember where he’d been. The first shot out of his pistol felt bigger than the rest of them and he knew that was just because it’d been so long since he’d fired a gun last. Back at the last mission. He closed his eyes and took a deep sniff and laughed, could almost hear Soldier yelling at him to stay on target or Heavy belting out some Russian song. There wasn’t anyone chasing after him with a flamethrower or shooting at him with a minigun and he wasn’t running to or from anything, just standing in one spot and shredding paper targets, bull’s-eyes and headshots, but it was still him with a gun in his hands. It’d been way too long since he’d had a gun in his hands.

Too bad they didn’t let anyone bring shotguns inside; he’d just have to check when they opened up the outdoor area next time he was here.

He went through four targets and didn’t bother taking any of them home, just headed out the door, didn’t even need stick around to say more than hello to the group of guys who were coming in to shoot their own guns. Scout was too ready to get back out into the sunshine kicking up his heels and dashing down hills through Pacific Heights, taking the long way home through North Beach and Russian Hill, and finally getting around to running up Telegraph Hill and every single one of its steps, shouting at the parrots when they started squalling out at him. He kept on going, running back through Chinatown, weaving in and out and between all the bodies and dashing past a cable car, finally back through SoMa and then onto home, collapsing on his couch not too tired but happier than he’d been in ages. He’d definitely have to do that again sometime.

Scout didn’t stay there long, jumping up to set his pistol on the kitchen table and grab the kit from the bedroom closet, then setting in to clean it up. He’d given it a decent look-over back in the Presidio, nothing big, but he could give his pistol everything it needed here and then some. He cleaned his guns pretty often, sometimes two or three times a month, and he’d always cleaned them at the end of a long day if he could or the end of a mission if he couldn’t – and he’d just been using his pistol, so he owed it to the gun to keep it clean.

It was a job he’d learned to do pretty fast if he wanted to, how to run through the whole thing to get in a few more minutes of sleeping. But today he took his time, going slow and being careful to do every part just right. It felt good to be doing it again. Doing it and having a good reason to do it. Field-stripping it down to the parts, setting everything out on the old bath towel, opening the bottle of solvent and then having to get up to open the window because he’d forgotten how bad that smelled. But once there was a little breeze coming through, it was all fine. He’d have to get a new bottle of the stuff if he wanted to do this again, have to remember to add it to the shopping list.

And it was a good thing he hadn’t thrown out Charlie’s old toothbrush, since it was just the right size to get the solvent down the barrel and into all the little cracks.

Dinner was a stir-fry of the last stuff he scrounged up from the vegetable drawer mixed with the leftover rice from the Chinese take-out the other night and a couple of eggs. He’d have to go out grocery shopping tomorrow, for pretty much everything. Down to three eggs, the last of the milk, almost no coffee. It used to be nobody had to go to the store to buy milk unless it was an emergency. He still remembered waking up early enough to bring the milk inside fresh and get the first crack at the cream on top. Just one more thing that didn’t happen anymore. Maybe they still sold milk with cream in it, but definitely not right to people’s doors.

Scout really didn’t know why everyone’d decided to stop doing that. It wasn’t like there weren’t enough cows around, or enough people buying milk. Even, no, especially in California.

He slept fine that night, slept great, and the next morning after his stretches and his rosary, he took off running and didn’t come home until he’d done the shopping, after he’d spent half the day just enjoying the sun and the air under his feet.

He made it back to the range a couple days later, giving his Winger Beretta Tomcat a workout for a change of pace, and stuck around long enough to ask the guy at the desk – turned out his name was Russell – how long it’d be until the outdoor area got cleared up for shotguns, which had him spending another half-hour talking shop about homemade sawed-off barrels until some other guys came in to shoot their own pistols and Scout waved himself off. 

Things kept going pretty well for the next couple of weeks, cleaning his guns and making his own spaghetti sauce from a book he got out of the library, getting out to that old church in the Mission with the tiny graveyard. Plenty of the churches here still did their masses in Latin and even used the same melodies he’d grown up with. It was nice to just let his mouth move and not think about it. Just go along with the words and music he remembered.

It was all going great right up until he had to get his braces tightened again and Charlie happened to be there. She wasn’t in the office with him; she was leaving right when he arrived. It’d definitely been her mom picking her up, they had the same chin, same eyebrows, same hair color even though the older woman had it long and Charlie still had hers short. Scout didn’t even think to go over and say something to her, a hello or a how you doin’ or a fuck off. He just stood there a block away, watched her talk without being able to hear her, saw her rub her jaw and get in the car and drive up Parker Avenue, and ended up staying at the corner like some idiot for almost five minutes before walking the rest of the block down to the office.

“You’re pretty quiet today.”

“Huaah?”

Dr. Swain didn’t look up from poking the new wire in through the brackets on his bottom jaw. “Most people don’t talk a lot. You always talk, even when I’m doing this part. You’re really good with this, you’re always talking. But you’re not today. So I’m wondering, it’s just something to notice.”

She’d been at this gig for long enough she knew what he was trying to say even when he couldn’t close his mouth, that it wasn’t anything, just some girl stuff. Nothing big, no big deal, just something not working out, and the two of them splitting up just a couple of weeks ago.

“Been a long time for me for that. Boy stuff, anyway. And I can’t say it gets easier, sorry. But you’ll feel better about it soon. Well, it gets easier with practice. The more you try. How’s that feel?” Nothing was poking anywhere, so he gave her a thumbs-up. “Good. Now, what colors?” Black and gold, top and bottom, after four straight months of red and white, something new to look at. And they did look pretty good, when she handed him a mirror to check them out.

Scout made his next appointment with Monica again, promised he’d be back in six weeks, and tried running home but didn’t make it. He thought he’d been doing fine, then he stopped to look around and realized he was out past Hunter’s Point, down at Candlestick Park and couldn’t remember getting there. Leaving Dr. Swain’s office, he remembered that, and deciding to take the long way back, he remembered that too, but not much else. He knew he’d gone through the city and probably just didn’t remember any of it because he’d been thinking about nothing – he’d been trying to not think of anything, especially not Charlie, and he ended up thinking about nothing. And he must’ve been thinking about nothing pretty hard to not remember running far enough to run out of city.

There was more than a baseball stadium out there and Scout ran until he found a sign that said the city kept this little bit of grass and beach around as a park for people to enjoy. As long as he was down here, he figured he might as well explore, and he didn’t find much, but it was nice. A little beach, a bunch of trees, some grass and paths to walk on, benches and picnic tables, all of it nice. He walked underneath the trees, looked up to see the sun come down through their leaves – he had no idea what they were, just one of those weird trees they had out in California. It was too hazy to see to the other side of the water, all the way out to Oakland, so he just stopped a minute, watched the sunlight float on the water, the little waves on the beach tell him the tide was coming in.

He paid more attention running back home the second time of the day, did better with looking around and seeing the street signs and the stoplights and houses. It was easy to not think about Charlie when he was trying to focus on where he was and what he was seeing, or just running to feel his body moving.

It stopped when he got home and closed the door behind him, walked to the living room and almost sat down. There were some days he’d just sit somewhere, at the table or on the couch or leaning up against his bed, and look out at the houses or the ocean or the wall, just stare away and not think about a thing, then look up and realize he had no idea how much time he’d been sitting there. But today wasn’t going to be one of those days. He’d finished all the books he’d checked out of the library, not counting the cookbook, and they weren’t even due for another week and a half but it’d keep him on his feet and out of the house. So he stuffed the books he’d finished into his satchel and ran out to return them just to have somewhere to go.

He’d almost looked her up in the phone book the other day to find her and ask, it wasn’t like she was in class, she’d have moved back home. Almost, and then he’d put it down before he’d finished flipping past the D section.

Scout stayed in the library after he’d stuffed everything down the return slot, grabbing a giant book on baseball off the shelf and curling up over it at one of the tables, flipping through it first to see the pictures and then to read the words until the place was about to close for the night. When he got home, it was late enough he could start making dinner and turned the radio on as high as it’d go, loud enough he could hear it in the living room.

He stopped chopping the peppers when the DJ took a break between songs to start talking about the Giants, and two days later, he was back down at Candlestick, not because he’d zoned out and didn’t realize where he was going but because he was finally attending a freaking baseball game in way too freaking long a time.

They were up against Oakland and Scout watched the whole thing halfway up the stands behind second base. Four hours, start to finish, and just as good as he remembered – the Giants weren’t the Sox, but nobody was the Sox but the Sox, and the Giants did a pretty good job. The popcorn, the hot dogs, those didn’t taste like they had when he was a kid, the ketchup and mustard didn’t either, but they were still popcorn and ballpark franks. No beer with nobody to sneak it to him and no reason to get in a yelling match about his ID not being fake, and the lemonade still came with too much lemon and too much ice and slid down his throat just like it was supposed to, and the new cups it came in didn’t even spill after he jumped to his feet along with everyone else to yell how that hadn’t been a foul, what the hell was the umpire smoking.

“I know, right?” Scout yelled at the guy sitting next to him.

“Total bullshit!”

“I coulda called it better!”

“Maybe you oughta be down there, then!”

They pretty much tied even the first four innings, and it would’ve been nice if the Giants won, but Scout wouldn’t be going home crying over it. Wouldn’t be going home cheering for the As if they won either, but he’d definitely be going home cheering. The place was newer than Fenway by a bunch of decades, but it was almost the same thing where it really counted, when it came to being a place for a home team to play their games and the fans to watch. Things like dads holding their kids up to get a better view for the home runs, with everyone shouting and howling and making some noise. There weren’t any houses where people could drag chairs up to the roofs to so they could watch from there, it was too far out from the city for that, and he didn’t know what the night games would be like but he wanted to find out, and when the Giants did end up winning with a perfect 3-2-3 double play he yelled as loud as he could just because he could. Nobody got up to leave right away, even when everything was done, it always took a while to empty out a huge stadium, and he stayed talking and yelling with people that didn’t ask him for his name and didn’t care he didn’t get theirs, laughing right with them and saying good-bye when they finally got to the parking lot and they had to get their car and drive home and he just started running.

And it was really great Charlie broke up with him. He wouldn’t have had so much fun if he’d had to drag her along and worry about bringing her home with him.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

“You got a little something there.”

“Sorry, what?” Scout looked over, hands still around the range-supplied earpiece.

One of the group of guys who’d been there when he’d arrived pointed to his forehead. “You got a little –” He leaned in and Scout wacked his hand away as he darted back, and the guy backed up a couple steps.

“It’s supposed t’be there.”

“It’s – oh, right. Sorry, sorry man, I just didn’t think of that.”

“You what?”

“I’d forgotten –”

“It’s Wednesday, I got somethin’ on my face, you can’t figure it out yourself? Seriously?” Scout almost had to admire the guy for being such an idiot. “Are you just tryin’ t’be stupid here?”

The guy pushed his mouth into a smile and held his hands up by his face. “Hey. I’m trying to apologize, you want to be the asshole here, that’s not my problem.”

“I’m not tryin’ t’be the asshole either, jerkass. I don’t wanna –”

“Look, I’m sorry I pissed you off, and I don’t want to go shoot angry.” His hands and fake smile both went down. “Can we cut the bullshit? I’m sorry I didn’t remember what today was before –”

If he said anything else, Scout didn’t hear him after he turned away and put on the earpiece. Forget not shooting angry; there wasn’t anything better than shooting angry, because nothing got rid of being angry better than shooting. His Shortstop still fit in his hands just right and even having to keep stopping to reload was good – it made him stop focusing on what was around him and just think about what was in his hands and what he’d used to do with this gun before punching holes into paper targets. Punching holes into people, the same people over and over, and he could almost hear them yelling back at him, the announcements coming in over the speakers about control points and extra time. It was easy to remember running back to keep on fighting after getting run over by a train or cut up with a knife, how much fun it was to get a bit of revenge by busting someone’s head open with a bat or a nice crop of bullets.

Scout breathed in, breathed out, pulled the trigger, not fighting it when it was doing him a world of good.

When he finished all nine rounds, the other guy had left, but Scout found him when he had to turn in the rented gear – him and the rest of the crew he’d come in with, all three of them. They were in civvies, jeans and polo shirts, but still had their boots on. Scout could see their own dogtag chains hanging around their necks and disappearing under their shirts, and all of them were giving him the sort of once-over he’d used to get from his mother.

“Hey, man, um –”

“Jake,” the guy clipped out.

“Jake, right, Jake, don’t worry ’bout it.” Scout didn’t have to fake the smile. “You didn’t know, it ain’t your fault. No hard feelings.”

“Well. Okay.” Jake stood up, and this time he got close enough for Scout to see he had a couple inches on him, looking down a little to look Scout in the eye. “Thanks for saying sorry.”

“Aw, don’t worry ’bout it, just don’t do it again t’anyone else, you get some real defensive types, nobody wants t’go around pissin’ off someone on a day like this.”

“No, I guess not.”

The other guys had come over, both a little taller than Jake and stockier too, but Scout knew he could take them. The one with the curly hair and round face was Ben, the guy with the buzzcut and wicked thick eyebrows was Mike, and it was Ben who stared at Scout’s mouth and asked, “You’re old enough to be here?”

It took Scout a minute to figure out what he was talking about – when he did, he snapped his mouth shut and glared up right into his eyes, “Fuck yeah I am, what’s it to you even if I wasn’t?”

“Ease up there,” Ben pulled back. “What it’d be to me is this place getting a citation for something-or-other thanks to a fucking tightass and us losing the range for people from out of town, thanks to somebody who sneaked his way in when he wasn’t supposed to.”

“How long you guys been coming here?”

“Four months,” Mike said. “About when we got stationed out here.”

“No kiddin’.”

By the time Scout bought everyone coffee at Rigolo Café twenty minutes later, he’d learned Mike and Ben were cousins from Illinois and Jake was from Colorado, they’d met when they’d gotten stationed here eight months ago, and either they’d never needed braces or got them done as kids. Everybody took their coffee black, nobody owned a car, and the three of them were in a house in the Presidio out on Lincoln Boulevard.

Scout just said he lived out in Cole Valley.

After Jake bused their cups and they swapped phone numbers – Scout’s home line and their office’s number plus the hours they worked – the three of them went back to the Presidio and Scout walked a half-block in the opposite direction before breaking into a run. Out to Geary, up Stanyan, to head home through Golden Gate Park. He kept on going past where he usually swung a left to get out, past the fields he didn’t even look at anymore, and slowed down just a little when he got to the soccer fields. A couple of ravens were calling out in the trees and they always sounded like they wanted people to know they were there. Scout didn’t yell back like he’d done with the parrots; he just kept going, looking up to try to find them and not doing too good a job, when the sun was at the right spot to make everything in the trees blend in perfectly until one of the ravens took off and he watched it fly and disappear back into the trees, calling out the whole time.

He kept running, looping through the trees and the Outer and Inner Sunset, not even breaking a sweat. The smell of gunpowder was still on his hands when he got back, same as the ash on his forehead staring him back in the mirror.

When he was done cleaning his Shortstop and had it back in its spot in the garage, he thought about calling Hardhat, figured he could wait a while longer, and just stood out on the balcony looking west. They’d all been laughing over the same things, making the same jokes about the same shitty haircuts they’d all gotten way back when, the same bad coffee they got served in every army mess hall everywhere from Kentucky to Texas to California, stuff he hadn’t talked about since he’d gotten out of touch with his brothers. It wasn’t like talking to Demo or Soldier after a long break between missions, more like how it was when he called up Engie or wrote Demo a letter, just knowing they knew everything he was talking about without having to stop to explain something.

Well, not everything – he wasn’t gonna come out and tell them the year he got drafted, not even if he was totally shitfaced, he knew better than to break contract like that – but almost everything. Enough of the same things. Even if they hadn’t known about the ashes.

It all washed off in the shower, anyway. Ashes, gunpowder, and all.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Scout had gotten into the habit of making it out to services every Sunday back at Easter – he’d shown up every day of Lent and almost every Sunday since then, pretty much all of them from May through November. When he came, he was always right on time and sometimes a little early, but the week before Thanksgiving he missed the first twenty minutes of the service thanks to the church’s food drive. They did a good enough job of getting people to come he had to wait in line for almost ten minutes to get to the woman he was supposed to hand the bags of food over to.

She gave a weird little squeak of surprise when she took the bags, strained to keep them from dropping to the floor and kept smiling anyway. “Thanks.”

“Aw, it’s fine. It was – I just had ’em around in the back of the pantry, figured I wasn’t gonna eat ’em anytime soon so I might as well share, it ain’t like canned soup ever goes bad.” He’d been out buying groceries anyway when he saw the canned soup, remembered the announcements from after the last week’s service, and went back to get another basket to fill up.

“No, it doesn’t. Oh, thank you.” She took another couple of plastic bags from the woman behind him in line and Scout moved to the side so she could the pasta down. “These will get plenty of people some good meals.”

“Yeah, it’s good t’share. I mean, I don’t need ’em but I can get more if I want canned soup, not like I need it in my basement in case we get snowed in – not that we’re gonna get snowed in here, does it ever get cold enough t’snow?”

She smiled and snorted a laugh out through her nose. “Sometimes I wish it did, mostly I’m glad it doesn’t. Thank you. Oh, right.” He took her hand when she held it out for a shake and she gave him a good, firm one with her soft skin. “Barbara. Good to meet you.”

“Good t’meet you too,” Scout said. “You want me t’call you Babs or Barb or somethin’?”

“No, just Barbara. Thanks.”

“How long you lived here?”

“Almost three years now. You?”

“About two. Hey, lemme give you a hand – so where you comin’ from that you gotta worry about snow?”

She’d come to San Francisco from the Oklahoma panhandle, out in between Kansas and Texas, quitting the job she’d had at a bank back home to get one out here once she’d finally had enough of Oklahoma. Not that Scout could blame her for that; he was almost surprised it took her that long. She had dark hair, dark eyes, clean tanned skin, and not enough hands to do everything she wanted, even with three other people to help out on her side of the table, since plenty of other people remembered the last week’s announcements.

“Thanks. So – thanks. And, maybe – hang on, you can just put that there,” she said, and the man holding a boxful of food set it down on the table while Scout waved himself off and she called out a good-bye. The sermon was fine, the services were the same as they’d always been, and he tried to tune out and just move along with the words and the sounds but he couldn’t manage to stop fidgeting.

He ran home right after services like he usually did, busting out the door as soon as he could because he was done with everything, but after the next week’s he slowed himself down for a few minutes, just long enough to take his time getting into line to shake the priest’s hands – or he would’ve, if he hadn’t seen Barbara outside already and elbowed past a couple of people blocking the door to run out and yell, “Yo, Barbara!”

They couldn’t talk long, just saying hello and that the drive went well and find out she’d gone home for Thanksgiving when he’d stayed in the city, and he didn’t mind but she kept pulling faces when someone bumped into her. She sighed and dug out a pen and some paper from her purse, and then handed over her number to Scout. “It’s getting kinda busy here, you might wanna call me later.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he smiled. 

Tuesday afternoon the guys had a couple free hours, plus the outdoor range was almost done for the season, so Scout took out his Scattergun for one last session before he had to put it away until next spring. After the whooping and cheering and the run on home looping around Corona Heights Park, he waited a couple more hours before giving Barbara a call about the weekend. Not back to the coffee place down on Masonic, something closer to her place out in the Mission, something a little bigger than just drinking a couple of cups of coffee sitting by a window – this time it was cups of coffee bought at a window they took out to Mission Dolores Park to drink on a grassy slope at the top of the park.

It was early December, late in the afternoon with the sun having done almost no good the whole day and the wind blowing to make sure nobody got warm, and the two of them were about the only people in the entire park not wearing any coats or jackets. She had a long-sleeved button-up cardigan over her shirt, and he just had his newsboy cap on low over his ears.

“You’re not too cold?”

“This? Nah, you kiddin’ me? It ain’t cold yet, not really, just a little windy, this ain’t nothin’ on a Boston winter.”

“It’s not much on an Oklahoma winter either, but I’m still trying to get comfortable.”

“I got my hat.”

“And that’s about it.”

“I got my coffee.” He held it up to demonstrate and took a long drink before smiling at her. “An’ I got some nice company t’keep my mind off things.”

“Well, thank you.”

They started talking about what real winter was like with snow and ice, where they’d come from to get where there wasn’t such a thing as a real winter, and she started talking about how she’d grown up on a farm with four older siblings, three sisters plus a brother, and he told her he knew exactly what it meant to be the youngest, littlest one. And it’d been a real honest-to-god farm, a couple of horses and a pig in the barn, a real red-painted barn like all the little kid picture books said, chickens running around and her dad getting up early every morning to get to his work in the wheat fields, actual wheat fields and everything.

Barbara nodded, took a sip, and wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand. “So what’s your dad do?”

“Longshoreman. Fisherman.” He crumped up the empty cup and threw it at a nearby trash can about twelve yards away, aimed perfectly to get in without even hitting the sides. “Goin’ out every mornin’ like yours, way before anybody but my ma was awake, comin’ home with the leftover bits from the day’s catch way after it got dark, even in summer. Just stinkin’ of sweat and salt, you would not believe his hands, they were like solid rope, seriously, you couldn’t even cut his fingers with a knife they were that tough. He, ah – he passed. Long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it was a long time ago.” Scout hadn’t been old enough to have a lot of memories of him, but he was always happy with the ones he’d managed to get. “My brothers were old enough t’take his place on the crew together after a couple years, my ma got a job until we could all get her money, we managed to work out okay.”

“Well. I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “My parents – they’re both still around, thank God, but my dad’s thinking of retiring, maybe just selling the land if my older sister does – I mean, my oldest sister doesn’t want to take it over. My brother might, we joke I should just come home and help run the place as a new family business.”

She moved her hands a lot while she talked, like he did, wrapping her right hand around her mocha latte, then switching it for the other because her left wasn’t as good for showing what she was talking about, both of them coming up to show how big the tractor was to ride when she was a kid, this high off the ground above her head, her right hand tossing her hair and her left bringing the coffee up to sip. It was nice to watch someone get into what they were talking about, really show him they liked what they had to share and wanted to make sure he heard them right. They weren’t still for a lot of the talking that had him happy when he ran home afterwards.

He didn’t take her home with him the next time they met up, Friday night for Italian a little ways away near Potrero Hill and worth the trip for the focaccia bread alone, even if it felt a little weird to sop up olive oil with it instead of spreading butter on top. The pasta was still great, way better than what it could’ve been. 

“Places like this weren’t even around when I was a kid t’even know about, you never had Italian food this good. I mean, we had it, but it wasn’t like this.” He speared a tortellini with his fork and held it up. “If you went out t’eat it, you wouldn’t even have tortellini, you’d be lucky if they had ravioli, you know, almost nothin’ but spaghetti and fettuccini, never with sauce this good either, just stuff you can feed ten, twelve people for cheap that they didn’t have t’cook themselves.” She nodded and he popped the tortellini into his mouth and kept going. “Maybe the fanciest thing they’d have was some fried artichoke thing, the whole thing you had t’take apart at the table with your regular knife an’ fork, but – yeah, big family, you gotta know how t’serve everyone when you’re goin’ out someplace.”

Barbara made a sound of agreeing with him and took a sip of her wine before starting. “I know what you mean. Big family-style places like that, no thank you, not anymore.” She nodded and then smiled. “My parents are Italian, so we wouldn’t have been going to that sort of place for that anyway. They wanted pasta, they’d make it themselves. I don’t make it as much as my mom did, not just because it’s such a pain to get fresh wheat, I can’t make pasta in my kitchen without taking over the whole apartment with everything, it’s worth it but it’s always such a hassle – I just can’t handle store-bought stuff. I have to find places like this that do it themselves. You have enough, you learn to taste the difference.”

“Yeah, there ain’t no way you eat fish that’s been waitin’ more than one, maybe two days if you know it’s good, you got no time t’wait with fish.”

Their third date out, it was a week later, Saturday afternoon that started with coffee and ended up with a little tour of his house.

“The garage is through there – it’s where I keep most of my guns.” He stood at the right angle to point at the door and watch her face so he could see everything. Not much happened, just her nodding, and he knew that wasn’t enough for him. “You okay with guns?”

She snorted. “I’m from Oklahoma.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“Do you hunt with them? I didn’t think anyone in San Francisco –”

“Nah, I just take ’em out to the shooting range at the Presidio sometimes, couple, three times a month, hang out there, keep the aim sharp, just shootin’ holes in targets.” She nodded with a little smile, and he went on, trying to be nonchalant about how happy he was she wasn’t freaking. “You know, I could probably getcha in, if you wanna go shootin’. Yeah, it’s, I know it ain’t really for civilians, but I could ask, see if there’s somethin’ – don’t get your hopes up, but, you know, I can ask if you wanna go shootin’ sometime.”

“It’s fine. But thanks.”

He kept on showing her around the place, out to the little patio downstairs and back to the kitchen, the guest bedrooms and extra bathroom, and she kept looking around like she was looking for something. She waited to ask until they were back in the kitchen.

“Where’s your TV?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Don’t you have one?”

“Uh, no, why would I?”

“Well – I guess, just because most people do.” She sat down on the couch, leaned against the armrest, looked up at Scout as he sat down across from her. “I don’t see a lot of houses that don’t have one in them. I know you don’t need one, I just kind of thought you’d have one.”

“I got a radio in my bedroom, if that’d work.” He pointed in its general direction. “You wanna listen t’somethin’?”

“No, not really. I just figured you’d have one.” She shrugged. “I guess I just think of houses as coming with them.”

“We never had one when I was a kid.” Leaning back, he flicked some invisible dirt off from under his fingernails. “Don’t even know what I’d do with one, if I got one. Where I’d put it. I got enough stuff already, I got my radio, I don’t need –”

“Okay, okay,” she almost laughed when she said it, and Scout knew that kind of fake laugh, that one that people used, mostly it was women but sometimes guys, when they wanted someone to stop. He hadn’t said anything weird or psycho, hadn’t even said it weird or psycho. “I guess a radio would be nice for baseball games.”

“Yeah. I try t’get out t’see as many as I can – you go t’home games?”

“Not a lot. I should, I know, it’s so close.” She nodded, he nodded, and she settled her hands down on her lap and looked at them before looking around. She craned her neck to take a look at the painting on the wall behind her. “That’s a pretty painting.”

“Thanks. It’s my mother’s.” It was one she’d made a few years after he’d signed up for RED, something with fog coming in over the water done in watercolors, and she’d explained how she’d had to paint around to get the white since that was the color of the paper, not a color from the box.

“It’s very nice.”

“Yeah, she always wanted t’go t’art school, but –”

“She made it?” Barbara got up to take a closer look.

“Yeah, while ago. I got a couple more – that one’s hers, and the ones downstairs, an’ the ones in the bedrooms.”

She nodded. “It’s really good.”

“Yeah, I know, she would’ve been really great if – if, y’know, she hadn’t been my Ma.”

“Yeah,” Barbara said. She shook her head, then looked back at Scout. “It’s funny, I keep meaning to get out to the Legion of Honor. I went there once after I moved here, but since then I just haven’t gotten around to it. And it’s right there, I really don’t have a good reason not to head there some weekend.”

Scout shrugged. “I haven’t been out there yet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. You think maybe we could – I mean, some Saturday’d be good, we’re both free, make a nice afternoon outta goin’ there. You an’ me.”

She smiled and sat back down next to him, one arm over the back of the couch. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

“Great.” He grinned back. “Lemme know when.”

“Probably after Christmas. I need to call home, see if I’m going or staying –”

“You ain’t thinkin’ of stayin’ here when you could be goin’ home for Christmas? You gotta be kidding me, you gotta head home for Christmas.”

“No, I am. I – no, it’s not Thanksgiving fallout, I’m just thinking, it’s nice here in the city, I wouldn’t need to use vacation days, I wouldn’t have to dig out my snow boots…”

“I am not hearin’ this, you hear me, I am not. I am not hearin’ someone say they ain’t goin’ home for Christmas just because it’d be easier t’stay at home. No way.” Barbara looked at him like he wasn’t speaking English, so he kept talking to explain to her. “I don’t mind waitin’ for you t’get back. Look, I – look, this is your family, your sisters, brother, both your parents, I know you think you can see ’em again, you just saw ’em, but you should go, you’ll be happy you saw ’em. You go back t’Oklahoma.”

She blinked a couple of times, then stared, then laughed. “I’ve never had a boyfriend try to talk me into going to see my parents before.”

“Oh, so I’m your boyfriend now?”

He got a good-night kiss, and almost as soon as she was out the door, he headed out himself – not to follow her, just to run to feel good, to get the energy stuck inside his chest out to the rest of him, a hard, fast run out to the Pacific and back, to make sure his body felt the same way his head did, the whole way through.

They had two weeks before she left and both of them had busy Saturdays, so the Legion of Honor was out until after New Year’s, probably, which was okay by Scout. Down at the Embarcadero the ice skating rink had finally opened and he made sure they got there late at night almost before it closed so they’d have the ice pretty much to themselves. Just the two of them, another couple he could spot as tourists, three teenagers trying to wrestle and skate at the same time, plus all the pigeons and seagulls and parrots anyone could want. He was better on the ice than she was, it was just another way to move on his feet, and they both laughed as he skated circles around her before taking her arm and helping her glide along faster and faster. It was almost cold enough to be winter off the ice – he’d finally dug out a long-sleeved shirt plus the scarf Sniper knitted for him way back when – and on the ice, it felt like it really was winter, cold settling on his skin even as he moved. Gliding along, not even talking to Barbara, just watching his breath catch in the air and push off, one foot after another, leaning into it to keep himself stable and moving faster, everything from his ankles to his hips telling him how he was supposed to be moving even after they turned in their skates and started walking to Union Square.

Everything was decorated for the holiday and the big tree in the middle of the Square was almost too bright to look at.

She took a cab to the airport, and three days later, he went to Midnight Mass alone.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

“An’ you see that there? See the way she’s facin’ us, but he ain’t? That means she had t’know when he didn’t. And there? The light comes from inside the painting, just those lamps, that’s called, uh, Kara, charcoal –”

Barbara leaned forward to read the card next to the painting. “Chiaroscuro.”

“Yeah, that it, that’s right.” Scout nodded. “All the light’s inside the painting. Not like a landscape – that one there,” he pointed to the one across the room, one of the ones he recognizes from his Ma’s books. “It’s just light comin’ in from all over the place, sunlight, y’know, outside, but inside, you got just the lamps here.”

He’d been to bigger museums, mostly ones with stuff like dinosaur skeletons and taxidermied bears, so he’d been kind of surprised to find out how small the Legion was, about as surprised to find out he’d run by it a couple of times without ever knowing – but he’d never been to a museum with art where he knew enough to show off to someone. Some of the stuff he wanted to say was already on the little cards next to the paintings, or on the walls behind the sculptures, but not all of it was, and he did a good enough job of remembering what he’d read to let Barbara keep thinking he knew more than what he was pulling up. And when they got to the other side of the place, the side with stuff he recognized from old Sunday school lessons, Barbara recognized a lot of the stuff too, so he didn’t even have to remember as hard as he’d been doing.

The exhibit downstairs, next to the hall of teacups and casserole dishes and the cases of old Greek coins and tiny lions with girl’s heads and wings, had stuff that wasn’t in any of the books. It was all stuff that’d been done while his Ma had been alive, while the war had been going on, and it was still okay he hadn’t read anything about them to remember because even though Barbara hadn’t either, she was plenty happy enough to start the talking, and what she said was enough to let him get going and keep talking. The museum had its gift shop downstairs and he caught her looking through a huge full-color book of all the paintings they’d just seen.

“Hey, what’cha got there?”

“Nothing.” She flipped a couple more pages and then put it back. “Not if I want to eat this month.”

“How much is it?” He grabbed it off the shelf. “Trick question, it don’t matter.”

“What? You can’t be serious, you’re just gonna get that for me?”

“Sure, why not?” The cashier rang it up and Scout handed over a couple of bills – and she’d been right, it was really expensive for a book, but fuck it, he knew the look in her face and if he did this right he’d get lucky tonight.

He almost did, anyway.

About as soon as they got back to his place, the book went onto the table next to her purse and they were on the couch, necking like there was no tomorrow, his hands crawling up under her shirt and hers running through his hair, moaning deeper and deeper, his hands coming around up front to grab a tit, until she grabbed them and held them right where they were.

She stared him right in the eye. “Look –”

“Aw, jeez, sorry sorry – I just thought we might, we could, if you don’t wanna –” He tried to pull his hands away, but she kept a hold on them, moving them away for him, down onto his legs.

“Would just a blowjob be all right?”

“That’d be, um, that’d be great, but – not here, in the bedroom, okay?”

Fifteen minutes later, after the best blowjob he’d had since 1987, he was lying spread-eagle on the bed with his pants down around his knees, panting and staring at the ceiling. When Barbara finished brushing her teeth and came back out of the bathroom, she lay down next to him face-down, grabbing a pillow and wrapping her arms around it. She smiled at him and reached her right hand over to go on top of his stomach where his shirt was pulled up. He giggled while she tickled him a bit, running her fingernails through his treasure trail and tracing little patterns on his skin when he turned to look at her.

“Wow. Just – wow.”

“Thank you.”

“No, really, and no, thank you, that was great, just amazin’, you really knew what you were doin’ down there, I ain’t kidding, that was one of the best I’ve had in, in way too long.”

She didn’t say anything, just smiled. Scout smiled back, and rolled over to kiss her. He pulled her on top of him, then rolled them over so he was back on top, slid his way down. Then he was the one with his head in between her legs, she was the one lying flat on her back and panting, and he was the one who went to go brush his teeth.

“You know – most guys in Oklahoma, they ask you to go first, but they almost never give anything back.” He lay down on his side, elbow on the pillow and hand on his cheek, and she turned her head to look at him.

“Then most guys in Oklahoma ain’t worth it the effort.”

“I always thought they were. I mean, if they agreed to that instead of insisting on something else, just the one thing, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, sure I know.”

“But a guy who’ll trade head, he…” She sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Well. A guy that trades head, that’s a guy worth getting to know.”

“You know, all the guys I talk to, all of ’em, most of ’em probably wouldn’t trade anyway. They’d think they’d just get a blowjob and forget about owing you one later, no way are they doin’ that, puttin’ their mouth down there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and most of ’em are dumb as posts.” Scout knew they had to be, if they never gave a woman head, if they never got a woman to look at them the way Barbara was looking at him now. Not that they weren’t good to get to know – there were things he could do with them he couldn’t do with Barbara, and not just because civilians weren’t allowed into the shooting range inside or outside. They’d have to head out to Burlingame if they wanted Barbara to go shooting.

He couldn’t go out drinking with Barbara, the sort of guy-time drinking at bars with pitchers of beer, no cocktails allowed, and turning the air blue, cussing for the fun of cussing, him and Mike helping to hold up Ben after he had one too many shots to walk back to his place, with Jake and Gary and Fisher leading the way through the streets. No way could he roughhouse with Barbara, not in the same way, not the way that had both him and the other guy bruised from punches to the shoulders for telling a really bad joke or just to say hello.

There were things he could do with Barbara, too, that he couldn’t do with the guys. Not just sex – more stuff that he wasn’t supposed to do with the guys, like art museums or going to a bookstore. He knew he couldn’t even suggest the idea of heading out to a bookstore he’d passed on Clement a couple of times to see what they had for cheap out front, not to the guys, but he could to Barbara and she’d even take him up on it. And it was fun, flipping through the big green bins at Green Apple out in the February cold, laughing at silly covers and titles, something he’d have been happy to do alone but was better doing with someone.

“Hey, sweet, I haven’t read this one in forever.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Here.” Scout handed over the yellowed paperback _Watership Down_. It was an old copy, still in good condition for being so used, and he smiled. “You know it’s still banned in Australia?”

“What? It’s about rabbits, why’d anyone ban it?”

“Ah, you know, after they got rid of all of ’em, can’t have anything gettin’ them any sympathy.” He took it back, staring down at the rabbit in the grass on the cover – Sniper had been so excited to get his hands on a copy, he’d gone around telling everyone. “But it wasn’t allowed in before that, even. You know all stuff comin’ in needs to get state supported? You can’t just write a book an’ expect t’find it there, it’s all, someone’s gotta make sure it’s all okay and stuff, nothin’ bad comin’ in, nothin’ sayin’ anything good about rabbits, things like that.”

“Wow.” Barbara nodded a couple of times. “I knew they were secretive down there, but – wow.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda weird.”

“Kinda? Try major.”

“Okay, major weird.” 

“And you know this how? If they’re not sharing, how…?”

“I used to work with an Australian.” Scout nodded, then grabbed the book tight in the air. “Okay, I’m gettin’ this. An’ maybe if they got somethin’ good over there, be right back.”

He didn’t find anything good in the art section, outside or inside, and didn’t get a chance to get to reading any of the book, just the first two pages when he was standing in line to pay for it because right after that they went across the street for lunch at Q.

“How’d you get to work with an Australian?”

“Oh, well, you know.” He took a long drink of his soda, even if it didn’t taste like it was supposed to – soda never tasted like it used to, nobody was making it right anymore – to get a moment to get the tension going, keep her eyes on him. “Just someone I worked with for a while.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. And you knew him, how?” She grabbed the ketchup without asking him to pass it over.

Scout managed to pull his grin down to where he was just smirking. “Special forces. Y’know, for when you need the really good guys t’get t’work, not just the regular joes, an’ not to say the regular joes ain’t worth sendin’ out, just sometimes, you gotta get someone a little more particular for a job.”

“Really?” The fry in her hand stayed in the air a moment before it finished its trip into her mouth and Scout had to wait for her to chew and swallow before he got another question. “What sort of jobs are we talking about here?”

“Hey, don’t think just ’cause the – the whole thing’s been over a while, you’re gonna just ask me what I was doin’ an’ get the whole set of answers. I can’t just break contract like that.” He sucked down an ice cube and went on. “I can’t tell ya where we were or what exactly it was we were doin’, but I can tell ya we were fightin’ the good fight. I can tell ya we were doin’ mostly intel operations, keepin’ the hostiles from gettin’ their hands on secrets, stealin’ theirs if we needed t’grab ’em – some land capping, makin’ sure we held the line, held the fort.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, an’ what I can tell ya, it ain’t always over fast, what is it, gorilla – guerrilla, yeah, some of it was just rushin’ out an’ finishin’ fast, some of it was waitin’ around, hopin’ we got a good opening some night.”

Barbara nodded, and leaned in, crossed her arms and rested her elbows on the table to hear more. Even after their food came, she kept on listening until it was time for her to head back to her place and him to his.

That was another thing he could do with her he couldn’t do with the guys. If he’d mentioned anything real enough for them to know about, they’d have asked for details and particulars, they’d have seen through his bullshit right away. But with Barbara, he could tell her stories if they sounded real enough. She could fill in the blanks with stuff from all the pulps she read. No way could he have done that with the guys.

The guys would want details, and they’d know he’d be lying. Barbara didn’t, and was really good, her not having any idea he was hiding anything to begin with.


	12. Chapter 12

12.

March in San Francisco was a lot like March in Boston. They were both trying to be cold without remembering how to actually get cold, they were both grey and cloudy without getting enough actual rain or snow to make the clouds worth anything, they were both full of muddy roads that needed extra construction work that couldn’t wait until May, they were both nearly empty because most people just stayed inside. Scout liked that last part the most – it meant he and the guys had more of the city to themselves. Mostly he had it to himself. Not so many tourists coming around to the good trucks or crowding him on the sidewalks when he went out running.

The cold, wet days were his favorites of all of them. Right when the fog came in, stayed and never left, when it wasn’t enough to rain, that was something San Francisco had Boston didn’t. Streetlights faded in and out while he ran past them in the fog, the lamps on the streetcars and buses blazed like pilot lights. Fog stuck to his skin, and if he ran enough to get tired and didn’t wear enough he’d get good and cold again, the sort of cold where he had to work to warm up, hot coffee and lots of it with plenty of hot chocolate mix added in. He wouldn’t even open the windows, just look out through them from the kitchen or the couch and stare at the fog because he couldn’t see anything else. 

Some days the guys were just free for drinks, or a movie, or drinks and a movie, but then a day came by where they had the whole day off. It wasn’t just him and Jake and Mike and Ben, though; when he got to their place, they had a bunch of other guys over he hadn’t even known about, Andy right back from Korea and Scott and Paul just back from Europe. Andy still had a tan, no lines around his neck or arms just all-over bronze to go with his light brown hair, and no beard or stubble either – that was Scott and Paul, Paul with a thick, dark moustache that must’ve taken him months to grow even with those sideburns and Scott just with what looked like three days of lazy mornings. All of them filling out their shirts like Scout never had, Scott about his height and the other two a bit taller, and all of them looking tired and happy to be home and like they really were as glad to see him as Mike and Jake said. So he smiled and shook all their hands when they offered, and grabbed at the cup of coffee Ben handed him to have something to hold. It wasn’t very good and not hot enough but he gulped it down anyway so he could get another.

Scott had known Mike and Ben but not Paul who’d known the two of them too, they’d met through them, and Paul had known Andy from shipping out from Washington together. He’d met Jake through Ben, and Paul from Scott, and they’d all known about Scout since they’d touched down, almost, everybody happy to talk about him, and Scout finally felt like he was smiling for real.

Scott and Paul started talking over each other, their favorite stories about beer runs and red light districts, Andy crowing on about the clubs with the Russian dancing girls brought in from what used to be Stalingrad and how his buddy Steve had up and married his favorite, even brought her back to the States with him, and Scout took a sip of coffee and started telling the story about how he’d gotten busted for picking up a hooker in Boston one time.

“Christ, how’d you manage that?” Scott asked.

“She wasn’t a real hooker, is how I managed – undercover vice cops, they wanna look the part, and trust me she looked it, even kissed like it, and then we get back to my place, almost there a couple streets over, and her badge comes out and the cuffs come on and it’s something I might’ve paid for if I was in the mood but she wasn’t throwin’ ’em in for free ’cause I tipped her nicely, it was me breakin’ the law, and – and, yeah, jail time an’ everything.” He scrambled to finish it with a good lie. “Not a lotta jail time, just one night, they went easy on me, you know, young kid –” He swallowed and went on. “Young kid makin’ a mistake, stay overnight, pay the bail, make sure he ain’t gonna do it again.”

Paul laughed and slapped him on the back, almost knocking the cup out of his hand. “Great job there, man, real great.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.” Miss Pauling had bailed him out – he’d given the station the number of RED’s local office when he’d been brought in, and bright and early the next morning the chief himself was there to apologize to Scout and he didn’t even get a scratch on his record, just an epic chewing-out from Miss Pauling and a lecture from Medic on safe sex when the story got out around the base. Demo and Spy had about bust a gut laughing and Soldier hadn’t let him hear the end of it, not until the mission ended and they all had to say good-bye until the next one, whenever that was going to be. Just two weeks that time, but nobody knew how long it’d be in advance for them to wait.

He didn’t want to stay but he didn’t want to leave, and when Andy backed up Mike’s suggestion of going out for a walk plus maybe something in the city, dinner and drinks if it got late enough for those, Scout jumped up and was the first one out the door and moving. It was one of those cold, grey days, almost nobody out, the wrong time of year for recruits to be doing drills. Off the main roads there weren’t even any cars, just slow-moving fog coming in off the ocean, not close enough to stick to his skin but enough that the roads were still damp late in the afternoon. He’d lived in San Francisco long enough to know it’d be full-on foghorn weather by nighttime. But now, it was one of those hazy days where it wasn’t bright enough for shadows, and he was the only one who was really moving. Everyone else was walking and talking when they could be running and talking or just running. He had to pull himself back to keep pace with everyone, and he could almost feel his skin itching. 

They were winding their way out of the Presidio, taking the side roads to keep the walk going on and the talk flowing and avoid everyone else the best they could, everybody talking over each other no matter how much anyone had to say. Even with nobody really moving, not even really walking just strolling, it was still good to be there – all the slapping and punching, shoving a bit to be friendly, walking as a cluster of people and maybe sometimes hitting a bit harder they needed to just to have fun or shoving a bit harder than they needed to just to get someone’s attention. It was what guys did, what friends did, and Scout kept moving around, sometimes joking next to Ben or keeping pace next to Andy. He was right next to Paul when he shoved a bit harder than he really needed to, and Paul shoved him back, and Scout figured the best thing to do was shove back again. Paul must have thought the same thing since that was what he did, right into Scout as he was starting to pick up the pace.

The roads were still wet from the little bit of rain the night before and all the fog that day. A day like that it could’ve happened to anyone at the edge of the road, getting shoved with one foot in the air and losing footing and falling off it into the jungle on the Presidio. Scout didn’t even have a second to crap his pants, just one to hang in midair and stare at the sky overhead and realize what was about to happen and how screwed he was before gravity remembered to grab him and pull.

It was total quiet until the moment he hit the ground and everything smashed into him like a wave trying to push him under. Sticks, rocks, roots, wet leaves, mud, more mud, jagged edges sticking up out of the mud, nothing but brown and darker browns and a flash of bright color that must’ve been a soda can, all the air punched out of him, knocks and slaps and bright flashes of pain as he fell down until his hands finally managed to grab onto something, stopping him right away all of a sudden and that had the rest of his body jerking after his arm. That was what got him to yell, that flare from his shoulder that screamed what it was, but after that one yell he clenched his teeth and licked away the blood, grabbed the vine in his other hand and got his footing and started to climb up.

Scout got two steps up, stopped to find his hat, and jammed his cap back on his head before getting back to the climb. When he got back to the road, up onto the pavement, he managed to crawl enough to collapse onto his knees. Everyone crowded around, acting like it was some big deal when it totally wasn’t, but nobody was listening to what he had to say. 

“Shit, shit, shit man shit I’m sorry Jesus –”

“You all right?”

“I’m fine, it’s fine, you didn’t mean anything by it, jus’ an accident.” Scout grinned up through the blood on his teeth and kept the smile going until he tried to stand up and had to get back down. “Oh, ow.”

“Let’s just get you a taxi. There a payphone around? Jake, you know if there’s a payphone?”

“There’s that one emergency –”

“Jesus, you all right? I mean, shit, you look like shit, fuck –”

“It’s fine, I’ll walk, it don’t hurt.”

“What doesn’t hurt?”

“I’ve had worse, it’s nothin’ for you guys t’worry about, ain’t nobody’s fault here, just help me up an’ stop standin’ around, someone gimme a goddamn hand.” Ben did, and Scout got halfway to his feet before he collapsed again.

“We’re getting an ambulance.”

“You hear that? We’re getting an ambulance. Just stay there.”

“What, I got – it ain’t that bad, I’ll walk it, hospital’s out over by the lake, right? Hell I can run there, just gimmie another hand up an’ I’ll run there, lemme show you.”

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Paul shouted as he ran off to the emergency phone.

“You don’t need t’do that, listen, I’m okay!” He focused on breathing even breaths, gripped his right shoulder tighter and used his free hand to wipe his face. “Look, it’s just, all I got’s a cut on my head, it’s fine, scalp wounds bleed a lot but it’s okay. This ain’t too bad, come on.”

“Bullshit.” Andy crouched down to look him in the eye. “A fall like that’s a promise for a concussion, who knows what else you got when you fell, what’s wrong with your shoulder?”

“That? What – yeah, it hurts I guess but it’s fine, I think, wait.” Scout tried moving it and had to bite back more sounds. “Ah, yeah, dislocated, definitely dislocated, think you could pop it back in an’ help me up?”

“I got it.” Andy’s hands were on him, one on his back holding him up, one wrapped around his arm, “You’re gonna need to hold still on this.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” 

Andy let go of his back to grip around his wrist, not too tight, just moving it, pressing it up against him. Scout tried to ignore everything happening on that entire side of his body and licked his lips again, then his teeth, and realized where the blood was coming from with those. “Goddamn it!” He shook his head, then held tight with his free hand to get the nausea to go away. “I messed these up, it’s like another six months wearin’ ’em!”

“Hey,” Scott crouched down to look him in the eye. “You’re gettin’ an ambulance, we’ll ride along, you feelin’ fine? I mean really fine.”

“For the millionth time, jeez, it hurts but it’s fine, I’ve had worse than this.” It didn’t help his case that he yelped, really yelped, when his shoulder popped right back in – he could feel it shift inside, the bone going right back into the socket, and then it stopped hurting and he couldn’t feel it anymore. Andy let go and Scout managed to get to his feet, shaking a bit, breathing in and out as even as he could. He looked around at everyone and smiled again. “Hey, guys?” Scout didn’t wait for an answer. “Jus’ wanna say welcome home t’everybody.”

Nobody had a chance to say anything because that was when the ambulance screeched up, sirens flashing just like a warning over the intercom, and he was already good but got fresh and peachy-keen when he heard that. There wasn’t any time to worry about how beat-up he was when there was something he had to do, or somewhere he needed to be. He knew how to hang onto himself, hold it together until someone gave him a mercy kill or a hit off a medigun or he woke up in respawn and could keep on going. Everyone else was holding it together worse than he was, and it wasn’t like they were the ones who’d fallen off the road and ripped their scalp open. They weren’t seeing anything new either, they’d gotten their training on what to do if someone got hurt, they’d better know not to panic like they were almost doing. And it wasn’t like Scout hadn’t had worse – this wasn’t anything to some of the things he’d been through. But nobody was listening, no matter how much he tried to tell them he was fine. The EMTs didn’t even give him a chance to talk, just grabbed him and started wrestling the minute he got inside, three of them all over him strapping him down, sticking a needle in his left hand, slapping a brace around his neck.

“Hey, check the dogtags!” Scout shouted.

“We’re not touchin’ those,” said the one nearest to him, a woman about Scott’s age with her hair in a bun like Miss Pauling used to wear. She leaned over to look him right in the eyes, blinked a couple of times as the ambulance sped along, and this close he could see the crow’s-feet around her eyes, smell the coffee on her breath, and get a whiff of it when she started firing questions at him. Also a couple of little commands like moving his fingers and following hers, but mostly easy questions, ones he knew the answers to – where he was, his address, where he hurt and what’d been hit when he fell – even if he had to stop and think for a moment to get all the lies lined up. When she asked him about his birthday, it took him a few seconds to backtrack from 1991 to 1978.

“That stuff he gave me, that guy right there, hey yeah you, what’d you give me, c’mon, tell me what’d he give me?”

“General analgetics and an IV, don’t touch it. Hands off, eyes on me. Your birthday.”

“November. And it’s some good stuff.”

“Good, it’s good to hear that. Day and the year?”

Scout opened his mouth to tell her and slammed it shut when he realized he had to lie, and kept it shut when the ambulance’s doors opened. He almost thought he’d be out of there, but it was just more of the same. No matter how much he protested they wouldn’t let him walk into the ER and wouldn’t even let him get up off the slab, he was staying strapped in the thing until they let him go. He would’ve cared more about his shirt getting cut off if it wasn’t going to be stained forever no matter how much hydrogen peroxide he soaked it in. At least the neck brace got off when the doctor got there, and then it was her hands all over him, prodding around and poking him with little sticks, asking him to move his fingers, his toes, his arms and legs, touch himself all over, how everything felt, asking him some of the same questions he’d gotten in the ambulance.

She didn’t ask, but if she had, he would’ve said just having her there helped him feel better – it felt kind of nice to have someone’s hands on him and so many people talking to him, asking him how he was.

Her hands were firm and gentle, especially over his old battle scars. She ghosted over the gunshot wounds, the old knife cuts and faded burns. He knew what he was supposed to say if she asked, but she didn’t say anything, so he kept quiet about them. Keeping quiet about getting some x-rays, not so much, because it hurt a bit but not too much and it wasn’t like they even found anything there, it was one more thing to have to do before they even let him sit up and finally give him a new shirt. A way-too-baggy shirt that was blue on top of everything else, but he put it on anyway.

Dr. McMurphy sighed and turned away from the x-rays on the little lit-up holder on the wall next to the painting that might’ve been a beach or might’ve been some clouds. Everyone else was right outside, hanging out in the hallway. Paul had been up in the front of the ambulance, the rest of them piling into Andy’s car and rushing to see him when he got wheeled down the hall. Maybe if they’d been in here he could’ve joked with them, had them throw a punch for him to dodge and let him show off he was all right, but it was just him and a doctor about his mother’s age when she’d died who just looked at him over her glasses.

“For the ten millionth time, I’m fine, this ain’t the worst I’ve ever got, this ain’t even the worst day I’ve ever had – c’mon just finish patchin’ me up an’ I’ll be outta your hair. Ain’t you got some laser-healing-rays or somethin’ that’ll just patch me up?”

“Believe me, I wish, but what they’ve got coming out of Pittsburgh is almost a decade from civilian trials,” she said, pulling an electric razor out from a cupboard and setting it on the counter. “I hear they’re getting some ground in Peru, though. You know, you fell down really well.”

“Thanks. I had plenty a’practice.”

“It shows. You’ve got some abrasions, contusions, but nothing major, just the one big laceration. Plus the concussion. How are you with needles?” 

He could feel the syringe sliding down underneath the skin, could feel the cold tingle of the stuff she squirted in. She did it again from the other side, and then all Scout could feel was the tugging on the rest of his head from her closing him up, twelve stitches total, keeping the small talk going to keep his mind off things. At least the cut was where a bigger loose hat would hide it until he got the stitches out and his hair grew back. 

“This gonna scar?” He didn’t touch it, kept his shirt from brushing against it as he pulled it back on.

“Not too badly, but yes,” she said, not looking up from washing her hands in the sink. “Just one more for the collection.”

Nothing else needed a needle and thread, just good bandages, a sling for his arm, and a prescription for the better kind of painkillers. After he promised her he knew how to take care of himself and change the dressings, that he knew what he was doing, he agreed on a follow-up with his regular doctor to get the stitches out in a week or so, and that was the end to the hour of lying there and sitting around to get everything checked over, cleaned off, and dressed up. Practically dressed to the nines for all his trouble, all the shots and scans and stitches; bandages on his hand, on his arm, on his head.

Everyone jumped to their feet when the door swung open. Paul got to him first and opened his mouth, but Scout cut him off before he could do anything more than that, spinning around and pointing to the side of his head. “Hey, guys, check it.” He grinned. “You know how hard it is t’find good needlework like this these days? An’ silk, too, real nice.” 

“How the fuck can you just laugh this off?” Jake asked, voice shaking – almost laughing, too, Scout knew that sort of shake in someone’s voice.

“I kept tellin’ you guys, I had worse than this. Fallin’ down a hill like that, that ain’t nothin’ t’some days I got.” He pulled the collar of the shirt open enough to show off his bullet scars, and everyone winced. “I mean, there’s this one t’start.”

“What the hell happened?” Mike demanded for everyone else.

Scout laughed. “What happened? We had a good field medic, is what happened.”

He had them all in the palm of his hand, eating everything he fed them, all the right lies, until he took a deep breath and realized he had to get out the door. The prescription for the painkillers gave him an excuse to wave good-bye and run out and head straight home, just stopping on the way for ten minutes at a drugstore off Geary. Just some regular over-the-counter stuff – what he was feeling really wasn’t that bad, and if it ended up getting worse later, he could get the stronger stuff then. But right now, like he said, he was pretty much fine. After he got in the door, took a pill with a tall glass of water, he realized it wasn’t too late in the day to call Dr. Swain’s office and get an emergency appointment set up. Turned out she’d had someone cancel, so the next afternoon right before she closed for the night he was back in her office to make sure he hadn’t wrecked his braces.

“They look all right.” She pushed his gums up with the round upside-down mirror tool he could never figure out. “I think you just cut up your lip. Hit your mouth against the ground, something like that. But it’s healing fine. And the rest of this is fine.” She grabbed another tool-thing from the sliding tray to check the metal holders around his back teeth, and couldn’t find anything wrong back there either. When Scout told her she did good work, she smiled and murmured a thank-you.

“You know, as long as you’re in here, you could get new colors. Rainbow, even. If you wanted. And you’re due to get back here in three weeks anyway. You could get something new to look at early.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay. I’ll just pick out somethin’ then.”

“No problem.” She rolled her chair away and started washing her hands at the sink as Scout got up, rubbing his jaw. “I’ll get you a couple recommendations for mouthwash, though. You use mouthwash? It’s okay, you will. And you feeling all right?”

“What?” He stopped right away, hand in mid-air.

“Not just the bruises and the stitches.” Dr. Swain glanced over before going back to looking through the top drawers of the cabinet. “I mean, you’re fine apart from those, but you still look tired. You’re still sleeping okay? Barbara, right, she slept over yet?”

“Oh, uh, no, she ain’t – she’s been over but she hasn’t slept over, an’ I guess, I think I’m sleepin’ enough.”

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” She shrugged, and handed him a glossy sheet for two dollars off a big bottle of green mouthwash. “Industry coupons. And good. It’s good to hear you’re going okay.”

He took it, folded it carefully and stuck it in his wallet, not looking her in the eye. “Thanks, it’s good t’say it.”

“See you in three weeks.”

“Yeah. Seeya.”

Scout was about to set off right as soon as he got outside her door, then stopped and stood still a moment, just looking around. He’d never taken a look at the neighborhood, not really, just Dr. Swain’s office with the little sign on the lawn and in the window. Not the other houses that were really houses, some like his house and made out of wood and some looking like they were made out of clay. Front yards with lawns and bushes and flowers, a couple trees down the block.

He took another look up and down the street and took off running, going the long way home around Golden Gate Park. It was clearer than yesterday, clear all the way up to the top of the sky, and just as cold, even colder with the wind blowing angry and sharp. Scout had to fight against it as he ran over the hills of the city, pushed on through it when it slapped him, bit him, kept his head down and tried to go even faster even though that made it blow harder and colder, he didn’t like it in his eyes like that but he liked it on his face, his arms, getting under his skin as he ran out by the Pacific and through the Sunset hills all the way to home.

When he got there, he had to wipe his eyes and nose and keep wiping them even after he got inside out of the wind. He started shivering as soon as he got inside, too – he was finally warm enough to realize how cold he’d been, but it hadn’t been that cold, it wasn’t as cold as he’d ever felt, even Viaduct didn’t have anything on a good Boston winter, this was nothing. He flopped down on the couch and wiped his eyes and left his head in his hands. It wasn’t that he was tired. He was fine, he was doing all right. It wasn’t like he was anything else but all right.

Yesterday hadn’t been anything to some other days he’d had. It’d been nothing on them. Falling down a hill and getting some stitches on his head was nothing compared to what he’d gone through for a job for twenty-two years. It wasn’t like he didn’t know worse. Getting an arm chopped off, that was worse. Being shot in the guts and waiting ten minutes to bleed out, that was worse. Flying into pieces from a rocket exploding right over his head, that was worse. Burning to death, punched to death, mashed to a pulp by a shovel, shattered by the bullets from a sentry or getting telefragged, shot right in the head with no time to realize what just happened, backstabbed with just enough time to feel how cold the blade was before knocking off – it wasn’t like he hadn’t gone through worse than that. It wasn’t like he hadn’t died.

Scout wiped his eyes again and looked around his living room, his mother’s old paintings, the empty fireplace, the Pacific Ocean all the way out at the end of the city where he’d just been running. Still no fog coming in, the weather report might say to know, he could get up and turn on the radio and find someone talking about the weather, it was about that time. Get up, go to the bedroom, move from sitting on the couch to lying on the bed and listening to the radio.

He called Engineer instead. It was too late where Demo was to call him, Spy didn’t have a telephone number yet, Heavy and Medic didn’t have one either, and everyone else – there was no goddamn way he’d even think about something for everyone else. Right now, this time of day, where he was calling from, Engineer was the only one he could call. Not that he’d tell him that. Just call him and tell him that things were going fine, he was doing okay, what’d happened the other day, and excusing his French what bullshit it was everyone thought it was a big deal.

“I guess, I mean it kinda is, gettin’ stitches, that ain’t nothin’. It just – it ain’t as much, you know?”

“If we’re takin’ the entirety of your life experiences into account, I suppose it ain’t, no.”

“Yeah, I mean, I mean.” He ran his free hand over his head, his thumb lingering on the edge of the shaved patch. “You know it ain’t as much, we both know, but I can say it t’you an’ you’ll listen, but nobody else did, they didn’t – I couldn’t say shit to them, sorry Hardhat but I just couldn’t say shit to ’em, I had t’show off some scars for –”

“You did what?”

“Relax, I didn’t break contract, I just showed some to ’em to show I’d had worse days than yesterday, but that – I had t’show ’em somethin’, I couldn’t just say somethin’, nobody believed me when I told ’em I was fine.”

“Just because you’ve lived through worse doesn’t do a thing t’diminish what’s taken place, and if it so happened that everyone else present turned out t’be lackin’ in proper context, I can’t see myself puttin’ any blame on any one of ’em not believin’ you.”

“I know that,” he snarled. “I know they didn’t have whatever, didn’t have context, I know I couldn’t’ve told ’em anything, I just – ah, god.”

“You – don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t sound like you’re doin’ quite so well as you could be.”

“I just got twelve stitches, no way am I doin’ as good as I could be.”

“Fair point. But I wasn’t quite talkin’ ’bout that.”

“Then what the hell is it you’re talkin’ about?”

“I’m only tryin’ t’make –”

“Christ, Engie.” Scout let himself turn around and fall back against the wall, let it hold him up as he hung his head and wiped his free hand over his face. “I couldn’t say a goddamn thing to ’em when all I wanted – all I want – they didn’t believe me when I said I’d had worse, I couldn’t let ’em know what worse was, I just – I just wanna talk t’someone else who’s died, is all.”

For a moment, a whole thirty seconds he counted on the clock, all he could hear was Engineer breathing.

“You sure you’re doing all right?”

“What? Look, I’m fine, okay? I’m doin’ all right. Didn’t even need t’get my braces fixed, stitches are comin’ out in a few days. It’s not –”

“It ain’t like you had worse, I know, you’ve told me enough damn times in the last five minutes. An’ maybe you are, you’re still young enough t’bounce back from a fall that’d leave a man such as myself infirm for weeks t’come. But that ain’t what I’m askin’ about here.” His voice had gone soft and quiet and hard, the way it sometimes had right before he killed someone or right after, and Scout wiped his face again. Engineer went on, “If what you’re tellin’ me is –”

“Look, if this ain’t a good time t’call, just lemme know, it’s fine if it ain’t.”

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“It’s no big deal, just tell me when it’ll be good t’call you back.”

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with us talkin’ now.”

“Look, it’s fine, I’m fine with it, I’m sorry if I called at a bad time an’ you don’t wanna talk, just –”

“Dammit, listen t’me. I’m tellin’ you this ain’t a bad time t’talk if you wanna talk, I’m happy with talkin’ if you’d like to.”

“You don’t have t’worry, no offense taken if you had other things t’do today, I’ll just call back when you say it’s fine, that’s all, Engie, an’ –”

“Would y’rather hear me say it’s a bad time? I got no trouble sayin’ it’s a bad time, I was havin’ a good time but that don’t seem t’be the case anymore.”

“Okay, then.” Scout started pacing again. “So when should I call ya back?”

“Thirty minutes would about make for an optimum interval. We’ll both have calmed down some by then.”

“Thirty minutes, fine.”

“Talk t’you then.”

Scout hung up the phone, checked the clock, braced his hands on the counter and squeezed his eyes shut.

He called Engie back twenty-four-and-a-half hours later, and if he had anything to say about the waiting, he kept it to himself. As soon as Scout started asking him about how his interview process was going, and if he’d found a good woman for the job yet, he was only too happy to talk about some of the more promising candidates and the rest of the projected timeline. Scout wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder and got busy making some more coffee, grunting and murmuring when he had to let Hardhat think he was listening – which he was, he always listened to him when he talked, he just didn’t always pay attention to the words.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

Scout went in first, the priest getting in the other side after he got down on his knees. The screen slid aside, more for sound than anything – between the dark and the screen he couldn’t see much of anything on the priest’s side or his own and he knew it wasn’t like the priest could see him. He looked down anyway, crossed himself like he ought to.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was – it was right at th’end of Lent last year, end a’April. Been about ten months since my last confession.”

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.”

“Yeah, I try t’go when I can, when I feel like I need t’be here, an’ – right. In that time, I’ve had, uh, right.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “I…I had ’em a minute ago, I was just gonna list ’em, nothin’ too big happens t’me much anymore, I got impure thoughts about my girl, I got, there’s some stuff that I don’t think’s a sin but it doesn’t seem like it’s stuff I oughta be proud about, an’ I just…”

“Yes, my son?”

“I’m doin’ fine. Nobody believes me but I’m doin’ fine, no matter how much I tell ’em, I can’t even tell my friends about it, even they don’t listen t’me sometimes, an’ – never mind, I don’t wanna go there.”

“If that’s your preference.”

“Thanks. I mean, I know, I been comin’ t’confession for –” He hissed at himself, at his mistake.

“Yes?”

“Nothin’. I been comin’ t’confession since I was a kid, is what I meant to say.” The priest didn’t say anything, and Scout didn’t wait to fill the silence. “I know how it works, I been comin’ long enough, an’ I know – there’s things I can’t say, an’ I know that ain’t how this works, it’s me an’ God in here, you standin’ in for Him, anythin’ I say in here I’m sayin’ t’Him. But it ain’t easy just t’come out an’ say some things. They had me under contract for – for more’n half my life, it ain’t easy t’just shrug that off, an’ it don’t matter much now, since the whole thing’s over an’ done, gone, an’ I know that, an’ some things I can say but I can’t say ’em because if I say one thing it’s still like sayin’ everything. An’ I can’t say anythin’, so I just say nothin’. I lie, I gotta say that t’you, I lie about what I did when people ask if I can’t get them t’stop askin’. An’ sometimes I think it’s better if I lie, they’d never believe me if I told the truth, an’ I wanna say it but I had too much time not sayin’ it t’say it in here, even. There’s like eight other people I could say it to an’ I can’t even talk t’most of ’em.”

“May I ask why that is?”

“I can’t – there’s nothin’ for ’em. I got no address, no phone number, nothin’ t’get in touch with ’em, some of ’em say they’re gettin’ ready t’settle down an’ maybe then I can give ’em a call but I gotta wait for them t’call me, an’ some of ’em, they’re just gone, no way no how no nothin’. Just – pfft. Gone right as soon as everythin’ was over.”

“In that –”

“Look, I’m sorry for interruptin’, but can you not say anythin’?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry, Father, sorry, it’s that – it ain’t easy, I just –” He swore under his breath. “I wanna be somewhere I know I can say anythin’. Even if I ain’t gonna say it, I wanna know I’m somewhere I can.”

He gripped his knees to keep his hands from shaking, and couldn’t hear anything from the other side.

“That would be the nature of the arrangement we’ve agreed on.”

“Yeah.”

“If all you want is a place to speak in confidence, then that’s the least I can provide. If you’d prefer to confess your sins, unburden yourself, then I can provide you with absolution – if you don’t, then there’s nothing I can do for you in that regard. I know you’re a loyal church-goer, and a generous benefactor, and if there’s nothing you want to say to me today, then I won’t force you to speak. I would prefer it if you did, but if that isn’t what you want, I’ll do what I can to give you a place to speak in confidence.”

“Thank you.” It took him a while to get the words out.

“It’s nothing. I mean that – really, it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, I know, an’ thanks.” Scout took a deep breath, straightened up, closed his eyes and crossed himself again to get back into it. “I – I got – I got things I wanna say, but I’m not gonna list ’em all, so let’s just say I’m sorry for what it is I’ve done an’ I wanna make up for it. For all my sins, I ask you t’pardon me, Father, in the name of God.”

“Four Hail Marys.”

“Thanks.”

“God the Father of mercies…” Scout nodded along with the penance, murmuring without speaking, using the Latin he’d learned when he was a kid and hadn’t heard in a long time. “…I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.”

After Scout finished up his prayers, he traded a smile and a wave with Father Thomas on his way out, and didn’t even have to fake either one of them. Maybe he hadn’t said anything specific, and he probably wouldn’t ever do it even in there, but knowing it was a safe space to talk if he ever needed it, no matter what he said, was something good to know. Between him and God, there probably wasn’t anyone else around he could talk to. Not even Barbara – which he was kind of okay with, since she was willing to believe him when he told her he’d had worse and it’d got him some pretty good feel-better sex. The kind of sex that had him pull out a condom so he wouldn’t come in her, even. And maybe it wasn’t the exact kind of sex he’d thought he’d get, but she was okay with it, and she promised him they’d both had a good time.

“You’re the first girl who’s ever asked me for that, y’know,” he said once they were cleaned off and lying in bed together. “I mean, not that I’ve asked – I wouldn’t’ve asked if you hadn’t, it ain’t – I mean, I never thought girls like that.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Barbara sighed, her drawl coming out more after sex like it always did. Sex, and good beer. She rolled over to face him and pulled a pillow up under her cheek. “It’s not what I’d really like, but it’s fine for now, you know?”

“Kinda, yeah, I guess. But I never thought girls wanted it up the ass like that.”

For some reason that made her laugh. “I mean, it’s not what I really want. It doesn’t do a lot for me. But hey, I’ll be wearing white for my wedding, so it works out fine.”

“You get to wear white what now?”

“What we just did doesn’t count.” Blinking a couple of times, she reached over and rubbed a hand up and down his arm. “It’ll count for us, but not for that, so we’re good, right?”

“Yeah – I, uh, yeah, we’re good.” Way back when he’d first started paying attention to girls for what they’d had between their legs, none of them had cared much about that. If they were going to go all the way, let the boy round all three bases and slide into a home run, they’d just lie about it and wear white anyway. Everyone expected it to be perfect and nobody thought it’d actually be that way – usually they got hitched to the guy anyway, so that was something else that was different, too.

“Good.” She rolled over onto her other side and stretched out her legs before pulling them back closer to herself. It wasn’t her first time sleeping over and he knew what she’d done meant she’d be asleep soon. He rolled and curled onto his side, not bothering to stretch anything out, before trying to get himself to fall asleep too. His stitches were aching a bit and he had to lie with them in the air to keep the pressure of his head off them.

He beat her awake the next morning with enough time for a twenty-minute run around the neighborhood and to get coffee and pancakes waiting for her.

“Milk, sugar? Cinnamon?”

“Just a dash of milk. Mmm, thanks.” He handed it over along with a free kiss, then poured himself a mug and left it black.

She took a sip and sighed, shuffled over to the table but didn’t sit down, just took a better view of the early morning fog. “What was last night about?”

“I what now?”

“You – nothing, it’s kind of silly.”

“No, what? You brought it up, it’s gotta be somethin’, you mind tellin’ me?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“You mind tellin’ me?” He glared down at her.

Barbara moved back to stand closer to the window, twisting her mouth and taking another sip of coffee before she answered. “You were talking in your sleep, that’s all.”

“I – really?”

“Yeah. Not a lot – I got up and had to go pee and didn’t hear anything then, but when I got back, you were…” She looked down at the steam rising from the mug. “You were saying something. It was – it wasn’t a lot.” She shrugged, resting the mug against her chest, right between her breasts, and Scout just stood there. “You moaned, and then you asked someone to shoot you. Sally, something like that.”

“Solly,” He said quietly, not looking her in the face.

“Yeah, Solly,” she said, a little brighter. “Was it someone you worked with? I know it’s all special forces, can’t say nothing, but – was it a name or what?”

“Nickname. Yeah.” Scout leaned against the counter, bracing himself on his hands. Staring up at the ceiling and the morning light playing across it, he felt the words fall out of his mouth. “I mean, we had names, real ones, an’ we had nicknames, you know, Doc, Solly, Hardhat, Spook, stuff people called us that wasn’t what they’d gotten asked to call us – the funny thing, the real funny thing about it was after a while, it was what our names were. What we called each other was all realer than the real names we’d started with.”

Barbara handed him a mug of coffee, nudged his arm with it, and he took it without looking at her, taking a sip and kept looking at the ceiling. “I guess – I mean, after a while, I guess you kinda get used to hearin’ a name, an’ when there ain’t someone around t’call you that…”

“Yeah. I know how that goes.”

He whipped around fast enough his stitches flashed in pain. “You what?”

“I had this friend in grade school, she moved away in fifth grade, we’re still in touch and all that, but when we were growing up together, it was like we were sisters our own ages – anyway, we had all these silly nicknames and titles for each other in the games we’d play, and nobody else knew them, and after she moved away, we just stopped with them.”

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“No, you don’t know how it goes, don’t say you do, don’t fuckin’ lie t’me like that.” He didn’t listen to her or what she was saying when he tossed the coffee into the sink, stormed to the bedroom, and slammed and locked the door behind him.

Barbara was long gone by the time he got around to finally drinking his morning cup of coffee, a couple of hours too late to be fresh and way too cold to taste good but with enough time left before noon to still call it his morning coffee. After cleaning up the mess they’d both left in the kitchen, he called her apartment to leave her a message. Once he got back from his run – skipping lunch and dinner to keep moving, just keep going through the day and into the night – he called her again when he knew he’d be able to get her on the line, banking on her having listened to what he’d already said earlier.

“You don’t have to –”

“No, I do, I do, an’ I gotta do it face-t’-face, this ain’t the thing t’say over the phone –”

“You said you were sorry and, it’s fine. I’m fine with you being sorry.”

“Maybe you’re fine with just that but I ain’t, this is – tomorrow, tomorrow night work for you?”

“You don’t – I guess it does, but –”

“Seven? Seven-thirty? Seven-thirty.”

“Okay? Seven-thirty and where?”

Scout got to Boulevard an hour early to slip the maître d’ a hundred and get them a good table by the window looking out over Mission Street. He’d ran past it the day before and stopped to go back and look at the menu. When Barbara arrived in a nicer dress than he’d ever seen her wear, he was glad he’d wrestled himself into the tie, and then lied and said he’d only been waiting a few minutes.

“So what is it?” She finally asked him halfway into her second glass of wine. He’d barely touched his own beer, their soup was gone and dinner was on the way, and they hadn’t even said ten words each. “You said this was something t’say to my face.”

“It is. I – it ain’t somethin’ I say much. It’s not…talkin’ about what I did then, it’s hard t’talk about ’cause there ain’t anyone around that I know I can talk to. An’ you’re great, you’re the best girlfriend I ever had, but it ain’t you, I just can’t talk t’you. An’ whatever you said, it’s, you can say you’re sorry an’ that’s fine, but you can’t say you know an’ mean it. An’ I’m sorry for gettin’ mad at you for that.”

“Okay.” She wrapped her fingers around the base of the glass, stroked up and down the stem, then kept her hand flat on the table. “Okay.”

“Good okay, bad okay?” Barbara didn’t answer. “You know I’m gettin’ the check, right? You can do the tip but I’m gettin’ the check, place like this, you lemme get the check.”

“That’s just fine with me.” She looked up, looked him right in the eye. “So what do you do that lets you get all this?”

“All what?”

“Everything. All this and all that.”

“I got a pension,” he answered.

“You do now.”

“Promise you, I got a pension.” Scout leaned in over the table, then leaned back when the waiter brought her poussin and his roast. He saw her smile at the food, at the way the little bird was ringed around by the bright red juice and the sprig of rosemary right on top, the grilled pink onions and potatoes hidden underneath. He smiled at his, the thick cut of meat he knew would be pink and soft on the inside, rich and warm, he could almost feel the crust snap between his teeth, and he waved his hand at the food laid out in front of them. “It ain’t somethin’ I can tell you about, but I promise you, what I did t’get it ain’t a pretty story. So let’s just eat our dinner an’ enjoy it.”

She picked up her knife and fork, poised right over the bird, and only stopped long enough to ask one last question. “Special forces gives good pensions?”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t believe.” That seemed to be enough. She went ahead and didn’t stop herself from enjoying her dinner.

He didn’t take her home with him that night, just kissed her good-night when she got into the taxi. Four nights after that, she had him over at her place for the first time, a tiny little apartment right off South Van Ness. It was a nice enough place, smaller than his old apartment back in Boston had been but a whole lot cozier, and she had him sit right down at the table as soon as he got in the door, wouldn’t even let him peek into the kitchen.

She didn’t bother pulling her chair in or taking her apron off when she sat down. “I know I told you my family’s Italian, but I still have t’warn you, I always cook like it’s for a party.”

“An’ this ain’t a party?”

“You need at least four people for a party. And everything’s ready, let’s just say grace first.”

“Sure, let’s – uh, you or me?” She smiled and he nodded, taking one of her hands in his and making sure to just hold it gently. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before reciting it like his family had always done. “Bless us o lord and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord amen.”

Barbara slipped out of his hand before he let go, moving almost as fast as him to rush into the kitchen and come out with two bowls of garlic soup. Creamy garlic soup that had a little tang to it, with melted cheese at the bottom to scrape up and swallow down. When she took the empty bowls and he asked if he could get seconds he just got a laugh. “I don’t care how many miles a day you run, you’d better save room.” 

No matter how much she said it wasn’t, Scout knew it was a party. She’d gone to the trouble to make more than one thing and so much of it, and all of it so good, it was a party. She’d made everything, from the little dinner rolls to the stock for the soup all the way down to the pasta. “That’s why you can’t see the kitchen, it’s still a mess in there, thank God it’s the weekend and I can take tomorrow to clean it up.”

“Trust me, this is – the whole thing’s worth any mess you got in there.” He knew he couldn’t pronounce the name of the sauce without some coaching and the image of Spy snorting at him for getting all the vowels wrong, but he didn’t much care when it was so good – spicy and kind of tart and a rich, deep red that clung to the fresh spaghetti. Barbara just smiled when he did what she did and grabbed a roll to wipe up the last bits clinging to her plate. “It’s way too long since I had anybody but me or a restaurant cook make somethin’ for me. An’ it was worth waitin’ for.”

Barbara let out a little sound and looked away. When she looked back, she was blushing. “Thank you.”

She’d baked some strawberry cobbler thing for dessert and timed everything just right to pull it out of the oven just after she cleared off the table and set down fresh plates. It was delicious, but what he liked that more than the dessert itself was she’d known he was coming and planned ahead for him like that. 

Scout made sure to thank her and show her a good time in bed right afterwards, ate her out and made her come twice before he even thought of taking care of himself, and when he came, he managed to hit her right on her bellybutton. She managed to prop herself up on her elbows to stare, then looked at him, back at his come, back at him, and they both started laughing.

“Yeah, I make it look easy!”

“Ya sure do,” she murmured, flopping back down. He wiped her clean before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth – “The yellow one’s fine,” she yelled out to him – to better give her a good-night kiss.

“Where you goin’?” She asked.

“Home.” He gave her another kiss.

“C’mon. Stay the night.”

“Nah. I gotta go.”

“Why? C’mon, you can stay,” she whispered.

He pulled back, dipped down to give her one last kiss right on the lips. “I gotta go. Call you tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“I – it’ll be – I gotta head home. Tomorrow.”

“Call me.”

“Call you.”

If she wanted him to have a good night, he didn’t stick around to hear it. He was already heading out the door, turning off all the lights on his way, dawdling just long enough to peek into the dark kitchen – and it really was a freakin’ mess like she’d told him, but he wanted to see for himself – before practically flying down the stairway and out of the building, hitting the ground running back home. It was springtime but the nights were still cold, thank living next to the ocean for that, thank the chilly breezes coming in off the Pacific to make their way over the hills all the way over to the Mission District, cold and colder when he was running out to meet them. They weren’t cold enough to get him to shiver or his toes to ache, and he warmed up fine with his feet pounding on the sidewalk, moving to run right down the middle of some of the empty streets, looping around Sutro Tower for a few more moments out in the night. He still shivered his way through a hot shower before he crawled into bed.

She’d really wanted him to stay the night. And she’d probably thought he would stay the night with her in her bed at her place and hadn’t thought he’d say no to an invitation like that. But he hadn’t known he wouldn’t say yes until she asked even with how much she’d wanted him to stay.

Scout made it up to her next Friday. He didn’t bake the bread or cook his own pasta but still took three days to plan out everything, make sure to follow the recipe as close as he could, even roasted and carved the chicken himself without making a mess of it. They finished off a bottle of the wine she’d gotten in the restaurant, she blew him before he ate her out, and he gave her a toothbrush of her own before scooting to the side to make room for her.

He wasn’t tired enough to sleep yet and it was nice to just lie there all drunk and floaty and watch her sleep. And if he said anything in his sleep, she didn’t say anything about it the next morning, which was just fine with him.

She didn’t ask about why he didn’t want to sleep at her place and he was freaking peachy with that. Maybe if she asked him again, or if he knew it was coming – find a way to work himself up to sleeping someplace new without knowing it too well, or scope it out while she was in the shower and wouldn’t know about him poking around all the corners and checking all the windows for quick escape routes. It wasn’t like going to a new base, or even an old base for the first time in three years or something; he’d always had his team with him, been with the team for it. And he’d gotten used to all the nightmares by 1969, there wasn’t even anything special to them anymore, just something that he dreamed about sometimes, but he’d always had them between the missions and they’d always gone away when he was on a new one. There were more of them now than there’d been just three years ago, almost every night instead of just some of them, and he liked that Barbara knew not to ask about them anymore. He didn’t want to tell her he thought they might get worse if he slept at her place.

So he made her bacon and eggs for breakfast and neither of them said anything about it.

Two weeks later, on a warm Sunday night, they went out to the first hometown baseball game. He’d bought their tickets days in advance, and during a low point in the second inning she didn’t fight him about him being the one to buy the hot dogs. And he was kind of happy she didn’t; it wasn’t much, and even if it had been, it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it. Plus, bringing her with him to the refreshment stand meant the jerk behind the counter didn’t ask him for ID to embarrass him in front of his girl. And they both had a good time, even if the home team didn’t pull through in the last two innings. She let him walk her back to the Nine line’s bus stop and wait with him, and when it didn’t come right away, they started walking to the next one.

“Me? Field hockey,” she said. “It was that or cheerleading. And I love football, don’t get me wrong I really love football, but no way am I getting into that human pyramid or wearing that – that goddamn skirt.” She giggled, then cleared her throat. “It’s athletic, sure, but it’s not for me.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He slid up close and almost slung an arm over her shoulders, then decided against it, just walking right next to her. “I see some of the things they do, and man, you make something like that look easy, no freakin’ way was it easy t’make it look easy.” She smiled, and he glanced away at the sidewalk curving up through the hills as the city started growing up around them. “You wanna stop here?”

“Sure.” He laid his jacket down on the bench for her to sit on before leaning up against the glass wall of the bus stop.

“So anyway…yeah, I’m glad you said you’d come along. I woulda gone alone, no problem for me there, but it was nice t’bring you. I mean, that you came.”

“Thanks.” She smiled right at him like he thought she wouldn’t ever do again after he’d slammed the door on her. “I’d never have come if you hadn’t asked – I don’t know why I haven’t gone to a game yet, so thanks for taking me to one to tell me what I’ve missed.”

“Baseball ain’t a big thing in Oklahoma?”

“Nah, not really.”

“Figures. I, ah, I – one guy I worked with a while, he was from Texas, an’ football was the big thing for him, baseball an’ everything else came in second to football, an’ I kinda figured, I know Oklahoma ain’t Texas but I wondered, they’re right next t’each other.”

“No, you got that right,” Barbara laughed. “Football is the sport, I mean, the absolute sport, everything from high school to pro, solid football.”

“Man, you couldn’t pay me to play football. Okay, maybe in someone’s backyard somewhere, just some running around, but the big games like that, nothin’ much happens.”

“And baseball’s better? There were how many times I said we should’ve brought somethin’ to read?”

“That’s different an’ you know it.”


	14. Chapter 14

14.

Spring had definitely arrived, the nights getting shorter and the days lasting longer, and the next two games they went to ended early enough they got to leave before it got too dark for Scout to walk Barbara home. Even with him there, she’d almost been too afraid to do it that first time, ready to drop a quarter in a payphone slot and get a cab from dispatch, and the second time, she tried to talk him out of it by saying how long it was, but when they kissed good-night in front of her building, she told him she’d liked it, just walking and talking to him. Even with everything he couldn’t tell her, he’d liked it too.

On their fourth trip out to Candlestick, the Giants were playing the Athletics, and a string of fouls in the fifth inning locked the game up for the next two, stretching everything out through the evening, and it felt like it was already tomorrow morning by the time they left the stadium. Night hadn’t totally fallen, but the streetlamps were coming on, drivers lit up their headlights, and Barbara walked so close to him she was almost climbing into his jacket.

And to make matters worse, she couldn’t understand what he was so upset about.

“I mean, it’s not – th’game ain’t supposed t’be played like that. I remember when – I mean, I wasn’t there watchin’ the games with, y’know, with José Tartabull or Carl Yastrzemski before the DH rule, but you know baseball, just go look it up, and it ain’t like the game’s never changed, but the DH is such –”

“It doesn’t seem like that bad an idea.”

“Oh, no – no way did I just hear you say that, you take that back.”

“No, no I don’t think I will. The DH isn’t that old, and it’s not like other big changes.”

“The women’s league doesn’t use it.”

“The women’s league is one of the big changes. I’m sayin’ just because it’s not what they played in, what, the nineteen-thirties, it’s not a huge tragedy.”

“Nineteen-sixties. It ain’t – look, that ain’t the same thing, not the same sorta thing. One changes how you play the game, one changes who gets t’play the game, that ain’t the same.”

“I thought we were talkin’ about major league baseball.”

“An’ we are.”

“So are we talkin’ about –”

“Hello there, beautiful.”

They’d decided to take a detour through Silver Terrace, loop around over by the playground, and it wasn’t like the Castro where someone was always awake no matter what time of day it was, they pretty much had most of the streets to themselves – so when the three men walked out of the shadows right towards him and Barbara, Scout was even more surprised than he would’ve been any other time.

“Oh Jesus,” she whispered under her breath, stepping in even closer to him, pressing up right against his arm. He felt her arm move and from it he could tell she’d just crossed herself, and if he was in her shoes, he’d probably do the same. But it wasn’t even three men, just three guys, all of them about Charlie’s age, walking close together. One of them had a knife and the other two both had guns, everyone holding their weapons out like Scout had seen in the movies a million times. Scout flicked his eyes over them, up and down from the way they stood to the looks on their faces, and knew Barbara was going to be fine.

“Look, we don’t –” She stammered out.

“Hey, we don’t want much, do we?” The one in the middle, the guy leading the other two, tossed them a flashy grin. “Just, y’know, what’s it you got in your pockets. And the purse. And, you know, whatever you’d like to give.”

“Nah.” Scout said. He was already smiling, and started smiling even bigger at the looks on all three of their faces. “You ain’t gettin’ a thing from us. You’re askin’ for a beer an’ a beatin’, an’ I ain’t buying you three knuckleheads a beer. You even old enough t’drink?”

“What the fuck?” The one with the knife asked. “This isn’t how – you, get down, on your knees, come on, get down!”

“Are you even listenin’ t’me? I ain’t bluffin’ here.” He stepped away from Barbara, towards the three of them, and everyone but him stayed put.

“The hell are you even doing? You’re supposed to be scared!” The guy in the middle still had his gun up, but it was shaking, and from the looks on all their faces they hadn’t been planning on this and didn’t know how to plan for something changing.

“I ain’t never been all that great with stuff I’m supposed t’do. But I know I don’t need t’be scared a’any of you right now. Come on, Barbara, look at these patsies. I mean, who the hell even uses hollow-point bullets on an M-1911?”

“What?” He looked down at his gun. “How’d you know I’m –”

The guy looked down at his gun for all of two seconds, but those were all Scout needed. He didn’t even need to yell when he ran forward since the three of them yelled for him. Dashed in, not rushing, breathing right to keep his head clear. Nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, just to do it, not even try. 

Middle guy was first. Scout grabbed his wrist, twisted it around when he spun on his heel, bringing his free arm around and smashing the elbow right into the solar plexus. He felt something firm give way just as the guy made a couple of really neat sounds, like a scream that came out as a whimper, and as he went down his hand relaxed, so Scout could grab hold of the gun. Ducked the next guy’s slash with the knife, too slow to worry about, put the safety on the gun in his hand, ran past and came up to pistol-whip the guy on the side of his head, watch the blood blossom on his scalp that Scout knew didn’t mean anything serious from too many scalp wounds to count. The guy crumpled harder than the first one had, didn’t even try to shout, but this time Scout yelled for him instead, the third one coming rushing at him with a gun that Scout knew was the stupidest thing to do with a handgun, no way could he aim running like that, not with him running to Scout or Scout yelling as he ran towards him, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a beauty of a Glasgow Kiss.

Scout bent down to pick up the second gun and put the safety on, before dropping it back down and taking a moment to look around. All three scrawny wanna-be tough guys from the right side of the tracks down in less than a minute, and he was feeling better than he’d been in years.

“An’ I ain’t even winded!” He crowed. Stretching his arms out over his head, closing his eyes to take in a deep breath of fresh night air with just a faint coppery aroma to it, he kept on smiling until he saw Barbara’s expression. She was backed up against the nearest wall, shaking all over, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

“You okay?”

“What.”

“Um?”

“Wha, what.”

“You doin’ okay?”

“What the fuck was that!”

“Uh.”

She didn’t move away from the wall but she’d stopped shaking, and kept staring him right in the eyes. “What the fuck was, that wasn’t the fuck, the hell was that all, you had a fucking nerve, the fuck, the Christ was that, the, the, what the hell did you just do?”

“Um, you mind tellin’ me –”

“No no no no no you tell me, what the hell was that you just did, you tell me.” Barbara managed to peel herself away from the wall and started walking. “We need t’call someone, someone must’ve heard, they – oh Jesus they’re not moving we gotta call –”

“They’re fine, they’re gonna be fine, you don’t need t’worry ’bout those chucklenuts, they got what’s comin’ to ’em, relax, I’ll find us a payphone an’ we’ll call –”

“You’d fucking better. You’d better get me a goddamn taxi, I’m not even thinkin’ – Jesus Christ, was the hell was that?”

“Jus’ me takin’ care of things.”

“That wasn’t – we’re going, we’re leaving. There was a phone, I know there was a phone – please tell me there was a phone, please…”

“Around the corner here.”

Barbara called a taxi before dialing for the cops and it arrived before they did, pulling up right to the curb about fifteen minutes after she hung up. They’d stood under the streetlight with their backs to the wall out on Bayshore Boulevard, a good distance between them, and she hadn’t even looked at him while they’d waited, not even out of the corner of her eye, he’d been watching her to see. She’d been looking away from him or down at the ground, never at him, never to see he was watching her, or else she’d have said something.

When the taxi stopped, he opened the door for her but didn’t try to follow her inside. He didn’t try to hug her, didn’t try to kiss her, didn’t even try to pass the driver a couple twenties – he didn’t know what was going on in her head but knew now wouldn’t be a good time for him to even try to find out, and he took off running as soon as the taxi pulled away and before the cops’ sirens got any closer.

He’d called her as soon as he got home, just slamming the door behind him and making a beeline for the phone. She’d gotten home safe too, but couldn’t talk; it was Monday tomorrow, a workday, she just wanted a shower and wine and sleep, and he hung up to let her go ahead with them. It was just after midnight and he hadn’t come down from the fight yet, not even after Barbara’s freak-out and running straight home. Scout looked around at the dark kitchen, at the countertops he knew how to find in the dark and the open door to his bedroom, and turned around, walked out the front door, and took in a deep breath of cool night air before hitting the pavement running.

As soon as they hit the newsstands, he bought a copy of Monday’s Chronicle down on Market, buck-seventy-five with a cup of some of the worst coffee he’d had since he left the army, and read every word of it when he got back home over a pot of the real stuff. There was nothing in there about the night before, not a damn thing, but Tuesday’s from a place out by Ocean Beach had a couple of paragraphs about it buried about ten pages in. Three hoodlums – their word, not just his – beaten up, all of them in the hospital, and the reporter had guessed maybe they’d tried mugging a whole group who didn’t like what these young kids were trying. She almost had it right and that wasn’t too bad. He knew he was worth five or six guys all by himself; it was good to hear someone else say it, prove it true.

Scout pushed the paper aside, then pulled it back to read the second paragraph when something caught his eye. A couple of numbers – their birthdays, when they’d been born. They really were all kids, all three of them, trying to be more grown-up than they really were, making kid mistakes. The youngest guy he’d beaten up was just twenty.

Holy shit, the youngest one was only twenty. He’d been younger than that when he’d joined RED way back when. He’d just been nineteen.

Just nineteen.


	15. Chapter 15

15.

“So I do, so I call her on Tuesday, make sure it’s after work when I know she ain’t busy, but she still says she is, she’ll call me back. An’ I try t’ask, but she just says she’s busy an’ she’ll call back, no arguin’. She did, so there’s that, kinda, anyway, she does, but it was four days after I called, an’ it’s all over quick, jus’ makin’ sure we’re meetin’ somewhere for dinner.”

“Mmm.” He couldn’t hear much from Demo’s end, just some muffled baby noises. Scout sighed and went on.

“An’ so we meet, an’ it’s a nice place, we been there before, nothin’ too fancy, an’ we have a nice dinner, I get the check an’ everythin’, make sure she has a ride home, an’ I thought she was still kinda rattled from th’whole thing, and maybe she was, I don’t know, didn’t ask. I call her again, she didn’t call me, an’ I have t’call again the day after that t’get somethin’ outta her, an’ the day after that too, an’ we never talk for more’n five, ten minutes. So it’s like three days t’get her t’meet me for coffee. An’ when we do, she sits me down and says this is it. Nothin’ t’make it softer, just, bam, we’re done. An’ then she says the, y’know, you’re a nice guy, you’re real swell, all that crap, I’m good an’ all but there’s no way this’ll work, I ain’t never been honest with her, you know how all it goes, right?”

“Not tha’ well, but go on.”

“Okay, so where was – I ain’t been honest with her, an’ I try t’say I’m doin’ what I can, an’ she says I just beat those kids up an’ I don’t even feel bad about it, an’ I tell her they weren’t plannin’ on takin’ her to a nice steak dinner, but no, she just says that’s it, that there’s a lot she knows I got I ain’t sharin’, an’ I’m yellin’ at her I wanna share an’ I would if I could, but then I realize she’s almost cryin’, an’ I’m yellin’ in the coffee shop, and I just sit back down and finish my coffee.”

Scout listened to Demo and his son breathe, and then he said, “So ye finished th’coffee.”

“Yeah, the coffee, it’s good coffee pretty much everywhere in the city even here. Right. She says that right there is exactly what she means, that there’s always me holdin’ somethin’ back an’ me yellin’ or gettin’ violent or me not lettin’ her in, and the shittiest thing is I know she’s right so I can’t say she ain’t. Then she gets the bill, an’ she’s the one t’give me a good-bye kiss first, an’ I kiss her back, just the cheek, I watch her go home, then I start runnin’. And then I called you.”

“An’ so – hold up a minute, what time’s it where you are, exactly?”

“What time? It’s five thirty in the morning.”

“You mean t’tell me ye were out runnin’ all night?”

“Yeah, I guess. So?”

“If it was any other time, lad, I’d be worried, but your lady jus’ ended things wi’you. Bein’ out at all hours, that’s a time-honored tradition for takin’ care o’such feelings.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“Pardon?”

“No, jus’ that if I’d told Hardhat that I’d been out runnin’ all night, he’d have gotten up at me ’bout it, you doin’ okay you sure you’re doin’ fine, an’ I am, and it’s just nice t’hear someone, t’not hear anyone…jus’ thanks.”

“Nah. Goin’ out runnin’, out drinkin’, whatever ’tis ye need some night, take it an’ do what ye can wi’ it. Everyone needs a night like that now an’ again, sometimes.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“An’ it’s a wee bit selfish o’me, but I wouldn’t mind it too much you makin’ a habit a’ early mornings. Glendon’s takin’ t’sleepin’ through the night now, an’ it’s a good time, is all. Good t’hear your voice.”

“Yeah, you too. You talk t’Hardhat much lately?”

“Only a little, bit back.”

“Same. He says his kid’s comin’ along fine, even if he hasn’t met it yet. It all sounds good for him”

“That it does. An’ – oh, lad, don’t, no, shhh, hush, we’ll get your mum –”

“Yeah, I know that sound,” Scout laughed. “You go get him breakfast, I’ll get mine. Call you soon?”

“He’s had his breakfast, he’s ready for his second lunch! But take care, an’ ye’d better bloody well do so.”

Scout smiled when he hung up the phone, feeling a whole hell of a lot better than before he’d called. Still not good enough to get up and on with his day yet, and he hadn’t been joking when he’d told Demo – Tavish, he could call him Tavish, he hadn’t even known his goddamn name was Tavish until three years ago – he’d been out all night. And it was damn early, but still too late to go to bed, even for a couple of hours, especially since a couple of hours wouldn’t do him any good. He still felt gross from not having brushed his teeth since yesterday afternoon, but figured he could get to that after a real breakfast, bacon and hash browns and good coffee made right on the stove. A short cold shower helped him get awake and feel less gross, and by then the coffee had really kicked in. 

He was too awake to think about going to bed, too tired to think about going out to run, so he just opened up the windows, made some more coffee, grabbed a book off the shelf and settled on the couch to read. Something not too challenging, but something to keep him awake, too; something he’d hadn’t read in a long time. The only thing he had in the house for that was _Watership Down_. If the only memory he had of it was of buying it with Barbara, he’d have tossed it away, but his memories of reading it up at Ravine were too strong and too good. He didn’t remember the book too well – pretty much just that it was about rabbits trying to find a new home, and one small part with the seagull where they couldn’t understand the ocean. What he remembered from the rest of the mission was how it was the third time they’d been stationed there in five years and the first time they’d ever won there, how it was spring in the desert and the smell of wet ground was strongest early in the morning, before everyone was awake and fighting to mix it with blood and gunpowder, and how Sniper had made sure to get his book back for once.

Scout skimmed the first couple of pages, then went back to the beginning to really read everything. The only reason he stopped and came up for air when he did was because he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was too hard to cook dinner with a book in his hand. He stopped just long enough to crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours when it was finally nighttime, then got back to rabbits escaping Efrafa and getting rescued by the train even before the coffee started boiling, eating breakfast one-handed to keep turning the pages.

He didn’t finish until the evening, after his shower and curled up in bed, kind of nauseated for putting off sleep when he needed more of it but still needing to press on through to get to the end. It was somehow important that it he’d finished it now, not later, but now, without going to sleep before finding out the ending. And it was worth it, too, to get to that ending. To get to where everyone had gotten to the home they’d all made for themselves, to see the General’s memorial, the new kittens, Hazel going – to see it come to an end they’d worked to get.

The next morning, when he was feeling more awake than he had any time in the last two days, he found a good spot for it on the bookcase in the living room and a few hours later, called up as many people as he could. And about an hour after that, he was buying all the guys drinks at The Bitter End so they could help him drown his sorrows – so long as he was buying, everyone was happy to help him out.

Plus, tossing down a couple of fifties to cover everyone’s tab felt pretty good, and when Jake and everyone else took a look at him, Scout just smiled. “If you’re worried about it, relax, I got it.”

“But that’s –”

“Relax, c’mon, lemme take my friends out for some drinks an’ let me forget my girl, ex-girl, just dumped me. We good with that?”

“This round’s on you, I’m so good with that,” Scott said, raising his beer. Everyone knocked glasses and bottles, knocked their drinks back, and Scout waved the waitress over to order another round.

“She – she sounded really fuckin’ nice,” Paul mumbled. “Why didn’t you ever meet us up?”

“Y’know it wouldn’t go – wouldn’t’ve gone over right, maybe if we’d stayed together bit longer, maybe.” Barbara had asked, a couple times, the first couple of months they’d gone out, and asked him right at the end at that last dinner why he never wanted her to meet his friends, why he didn’t talk about them much. Any of them, the guys he knew now or the guys he’d worked with. “You would’ve liked her, though. An’ I’m kinda sorry she didn’t get a chance, but hey, maybe it’s good she didn’t.” The waitress passed around the third round and Scout drained half his beer in one go. “An’ she wasn’t a bitch, don’t you bastards even start up with that, she just wasn’t – she’d be good for someone else, but not good for me.”

Everyone was quiet around the table until Mike laughed and slammed his highball down on the table. “You haven’t had enough t’be talking like that and I haven’t had enough for me to listen to that.”

“Free man. Unenquest – unencumbered.” Ben’s words sloshed around in his mouth, and he took another drink like that would wash them out. “You’ve been making eyes at Cherie – Cheryl all night, go on an’ ask that pretty waitress for –”

“Chéri,” Scout corrected.

“What?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Go on an’ ask her.”

“What Mikey and Benny said,” Andy murmured. “You’re makin’ me a little sick here.” He pushed at Scout, who felt like he’d been dropped in a snowbank and almost shot up out of his seat – and everyone was laughing and pushing at each other, he could see it was at each other, and Andy went on. “Jus’ go on an’ ask her, an’ we’ll stop bugging you. Go on over.”

“If it’ll get you guys off my back, I’m goin’, I’m goin’, lemme out an’ I’ll go.” Scout worked his way to the edge of the booth, out across the floor to where Cheryl was tabbing in some receipts. There was something he could say, he was almost sober enough to remember it.

Then she turned and looked at him, and if it was têtes de poisson or возлюбленнаяhe he couldn’t remember. “You need another round?”

“Yes! No – well, yeah, we do, an’ – look, this ain’t me, they said t’come over an’ talk t’you, I go back right now they’re just gonna give me shit for not sayin’ anythin’.”

Cheryl nodded, her make-up easy to see this close up under the bar’s harsh lights. “All you need is to bullshit me for a while?”

“Basically, yeah. I mean, I’d like your number an’ all, but if y’don’t wanna give it out, I ain’t gonna be some jerkass who won’t take no for an answer.” This close up, he could see she meant it when she smiled, from the way her eyes crinkled up around the corners. “I wouldn’t ask for it anyway, we’re out – you know, you heard us, right. An’ you’re great an’ all, you wanna give me your number I ain’t gonna say no, but I ain’t gonna ask for it – you wanna, I understand, no way would you head home without me givin’ you a good time –”

“I get the picture. And thanks, and I think you can get back to your friends without losing face now.” 

“Hey, thanks. An’ just one last thing – where’d you get that?”

“Get what?”

When Scout got back to the table a few minutes after that, it was with a round of drinks he’d paid for, a round of beers on the house, a grin he didn’t even try to hide, and an address written on the back of an old receipt that got everyone to raise the next toast to him and what Jake said were his ways with the women of the world.

It wasn’t for her place, but it was a real address just the same.

He got a couple more names and addresses over the rest of the week. It turned out people didn’t mind being asked to give them, one or the other or both if they could, so long as Scout made sure to let them know what it was he wanted to talk about as soon as he started talking to them, and it didn’t much matter where or when or with who. People in the park, one guy out at the shooting range, the cashier and bagger at the local grocery store, pretty much everyone was okay with talking to him. It felt good to do the talking, to be able to look someone in the eye and for them to look back, for them to want to talk to him, that he kept on going and asking even after he made a couple of visits to check out what he’d already gotten.

And about four months after Barbara broke things off with him, of thinking about it and visiting the right places, talking to everyone and every so often asking someone to draw him a picture and congratulating Engineer on the birth of his son, Scout found a woman he knew he could work with. Leonora had hair that looked like a Telegraph Hill parrot, more tattoos and piercings than he’d ever seen on anyone outside of photos of circus sideshows, and her studio was the cleanest room he’d been in since the ER where he’d gotten his head stitched up. When she shook his hand and sat him down at her desk to start discussing the piece with him, she had the same tone and seriousness Mrs. Carlson used whenever she talked about stuff like annuities and perpetuities. They took their time hashing out what he had in mind, she opened a sketchbook to a blank page, and in a few minutes what he wanted to see on his skin was sitting right on the paper in front of them.

“About five-by-two inches, strong outline, blended colors? Two, maybe three sessions. It depends on how much you can take at a time.” She shrugged. “A quote on a price for something like that, I’d be pulling a number out of my ass, it depends on a lot more than just how much ink it’ll use.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“Great, good to hear it.” She booked their first session for the next Tuesday, gave him a pamphlet on prep and aftercare that he read every word of, and six days later after a lunch of a ketchup-dripping cheeseburger with bacon slices and soda from a real glass bottle, she spread out a towel, he pulled off his pants and peeled off his briefs, and she swabbed his skin and started in with his tattoo. She’d already told him what to expect and he knew it’d hurt, but he wasn’t expecting it to sting. He’d almost expected it to hurt more than what it felt like. Kind of like a thorn or the BLU Medic’s needle gun, nothing too bad, except it didn’t go away – it didn’t get any worse, though, and if it stayed like this, he could handle it fine and she could finish it today.

“You sure?” Leonora asked.

“Sure I’m sure. You lemme show you some scars, you wouldn’t believe the stories behind ’em – sure I’m sure, this ain’t much, I dealt with stuff like this before. Not just like this, ain’t never gotten a tattoo before, but you know, stuff about this painful.”

“Dandy. You still tell me if it gets too much, because you flinch, it’ll look bad on you and worse for me. Got that?”

“You betcha.”

“So how long have you lived in the city?”

“About three years now. Not too far from here, just over in Cole Valley.”

“Nice and posh.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet place. Mornings it’s nice an’ all, evenings when the sunset’s goin’ – I got a good view out to the Pacific, an’ it’s almost what you buy a house like that for, city like this, you need t’find a good view.”

“Tell me about it. I’m in this converted nineteen-twenties row house and it’s a great place, I don’t want to complain, but I’m looking at new places because one more year of a view of a brick wall and fire escapes is just gonna kill me.”

“Where you thinkin’ of goin’?”

“SoMa looks good right now. Get a loft, lots of natural light. Be a bit far to get to work, though, so maybe just over in Dolores Heights.”

“I been through there a couple times.” He closed his eyes and let the pain stay on his hip, focusing on her hands in their thin gloves pressing against his skin, the sound of her voice and the gun and of the rest of the parlor, and let himself move away from the pain and keep on going.

About four hours after Leonora had laid him down on the towel, after four hours of talking about some of her problem clients and his old scars and Engineer’s son and the bullshit that was modern pop music and whatever else they could think of to keep him busy, she wiped him down and said she was done. 

He didn’t bother to pull his pants on before getting up and grabbing a mirror to get a good look. “Oooh, nice! How much I gotta tip you for work this good?”

“Not a problem. You get a no-whining-no-squirming discount.” Leonora let him get one last good look in before she bandaged it over, gently laying down the surgical tape.

“You seriously give those?” 

“I do today.”

“Hey, thanks. You got real good hands, y’ know that?” He hadn’t felt this good since he’d beaten up those three hoodlums right before Barbara started freaking and when he got like this he knew there was no stopping his mouth. “I been stitched up by surgeons an’ your hands are just as good as theirs.”

“Thank you,” she said, riding the rolling chair back to her desk as she snapped off her gloves and began writing up his bill.

Running home was a challenge with the bandage, even waiting a while, but he made it. And he’d already stocked up on all the aftercare supplies the pamphlet said he’d need, so when he finally pulled his pants back up and headed home, everything was already in the bathroom waiting for him when he needed it that evening, eight hours after Leonora’d finished.

It wasn’t anything big or flashy or even all that fancy, no tiny scales or leaves or wind rippling through a woman’s hair. Just something small and simple that made him happy to know it was there – just a small rabbit out running, leaping, all four feet out in the middle of a jump. Soft browns, strong outlines, big ears and a small nose and little fluffy tail, a small, brave rabbit.

_And El-ahrairah's tail grew shining white and flashed like a star. And his back legs grew long and powerful. And he tore across the hill, faster than any creature in the world. And Frith called after him, ‘All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you, digger, listener, runner. Prince with a swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.’_

“But first they must catch you,” he whispered, gently running a fingertip around it. There was no one around to hear him, and he whispered anyway.

Spy’s address had been hanging on the fridge for almost two weeks, courtesy of Engineer, who’d started signing all his letters ‘Dell and Dylan.’ Scout explained he’d been waiting for something to talk about and the tattoo was something big enough to share, something he knew Spy would like to hear about. A couple weeks later, he got an envelope with Spy’s new address as the return info, and the message inside told him Spy would’ve liked to hear from the little rabbit sooner but a fresh tattoo could sometimes be good news to share; he might even get a free coffee if he flashed it at a particular rabbit-named café in his town. That, and just about anything from Scout was worth sharing right now, this wasn’t the time of year with much happening, he was looking for work and settling into his new apartment and little else.

Scout thought he sounded a little tired, or maybe kind of worn out, probably just from all the moving around and finally getting a new place of his own. He knew it’d taken him a while to get used to living in his place and made sure to tell Spy that, how it’d get better once he got used to it.

 _I suppose I must eventually_ , Spy wrote back.


	16. Chapter 16

16.

He got to show it off to everyone the next time they all went out for drinks out at some new nightclub in Nob Hill that Paul said reminded him of the better kind of European titty clubs except for the titty part. At that point Scout had downed three beers and something called a Milkshake and couldn’t resist the opportunity to say he could at least do his part and show off some skin, help them all feel a little better about there not being any half-naked girls. Everyone was drunk enough to think it was funny and sober enough to pay attention to the tattoo like Scout wanted.

“Looks good on you,” Scott managed to get out, already drunker than Mike.

“Yeah, it does, don’t it?”

He slapped Scout on the shoulder. “Helps you look your age.”

Paul grunted, leaned forward to point with his beer bottle. “Those braces. They just…they’re no way doin’ any favors for you.”

“They – they’re doin’ their job, they’re not –”

“Ah, relax, we all went through ’em, right?” Ben passed him his half-empty highball glass. “The rubber bands an’ headgear an’ that, all that, yeah, you all know.”

Scout had to go back to the rubber bands last month, he’d never needed any headgear. He barely knew what everyone was talking about until Mike rolled up his sleeve to show off his own tattoo on his upper arm, some nice memorial piece a couple years older than Scout’s rabbit but nowhere near as nice, at least not to Scout. Andy had to get up and showed off his ink too, Jake bought the next round, and there wasn’t much more to the night before they were all heading out to home.

Nobody called him up until some three weeks later, when Ben introduced Scout and Scott and Jake to Rick and Chris and Pedro, good friends of his coming through the city for a couple of days, and he swore they just had to go out drinking together. Scout almost tore out the door as soon as the four of them walked into the bar, but he watched them stand and sit and knew he could take all three of them if it came to that. Pedro said they had four more days of leave before they went back to Washington and Scout knew he could deal with that.

He got the next round of drinks anyway, and ducked into the bathroom to get a minute alone; the bar-stall smell of shit and piss and puke was about as good as dunking his head into a bucket of cold water. 

They seemed cool enough, more interested in Scott and Ben than Jake and Scout, and he sipped at his Dark and Stormy, listening to everyone talk about the election that was three weeks away and what Dole and Clinton were promising. How they’d sworn they’d go for Greco-Roman wrestling to settle the next debate if it ended in a tie and what Schindler’s death was making everyone say they’d do when they got into office.

“I just can’t say it’s a good idea,” Pedro said, shaking his head. “I mean, I just, I just can’t say –”

“We already know it, he should’ve known, look.” Rick paused to take a drink. “It’s a bad, a bad idea for everyone t’let them in, they ask at the office, we shouldn’t let –”

“Come on, cut that out. That’s bullshit an’ you know it.” 

It was the most Scout had said all night and everyone’s eyes were on him.

“Hold up, what?” Jake asked first.

“It’s bullshit sayin’ someone shouldn’t serve just ’cause they’re queer. I mean, I fought with plenty of queer guys – an’ hell, my third-oldest brother, he stayed in th’army after his tour was over, made it his freakin’ career, he was queer, nobody told him no when he got drafted.”

Chris looked like he’d stepped in something and so did Pedro, Rick’s mouth hung open, and Scout couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for any of them. Ben was saying something but Scout didn’t hear anything. He pulled a couple twenties out of his wallet, dropped them on the table and didn’t look back.

When he called Engie the next day, he almost told him about it, but instead just asked how Dylan was doing. It wasn’t like a tattoo or a hot date or even a really great book, it wasn’t something worth sharing. Not like how sleeping through the night or starting on solids was worth sharing. Demo’s wife giving birth to a daughter, that was worth sharing. Heavy and Medic finally sending him a letter courtesy of Engineer, and from Finland of all places, that was worth sharing. What he was doing wasn’t. He wasn’t doing anything, was the point.

Even the apology he got from Ben about that night a week after the fact didn’t do anything. Bullshit on how they were decent and upstanding guys even though they felt that way about queers in the army – and Scout knew that meant queers in general and couldn’t get why they’d come to freaking San Francisco for a week’s leave if that was how they felt about it. He knew it was to see their old buddy, and it wasn’t enough, didn’t seem like enough. There were other places they could’ve gone.

He took Ben and Jake out for coffee on his dime to make the night up to them anyway. Cheap coffee, some corner diner a couple bus stops away from the Presidio, instead of a good shop on Haight, not something to make them look at him and his wallet again. He hated them looking that way, like he was hiding something – and he was, but they weren’t supposed to think that, and taking them out for diner coffee and cheese Danishes was enough to get them to stop looking for a while and also get a decent good-bye out of them. It left him feeling fine enough to try visiting someplace new that he’d run past dozens of times.

At first, he didn’t think it was all that great, not until his eyes adjusted from the sun and he saw just how far away the back of the store was. He spent the next hour wandering up and down the aisles, checking what they had in stock, staring at all the posters, and finally leaving when it got to be too much to keep taking in. The next time he was in, back again the next morning right when the place opened and before anyone else came in, he left after an hour and a half of doing almost nothing but flipping through the vinyl. When he got home, it was with two dozen new old albums, records that’d been on the planet longer than he had, full of songs that sounded just the same as they had when they’d been new.

The downstairs bedroom was supposed to be a bedroom, and it could be if he ever got a bed in there. Right now it didn’t have one, or any major pieces of furniture for that matter. Just a fireplace, wall-to-wall carpeting, some paintings, and two walls of shelves for keeping his stuff – including his hi-fi set-up from his old apartment back in Boston. 

When he’d been a kid, even if he’d had enough spending money for a record, there wasn’t any point to buying one, not when his family didn’t have a record player. There’d been a couple in the neighborhood, family things that stayed out in the living room, never anyone’s own personal record player for their own record collection. It’d been one of the first things he’d gotten for his apartment, one of the biggest things he could’ve shown to his brothers – here he was, finally making something of himself, with his own hi-fi system in stereo and everything. He still had his boom box stuck in the back of a closet, and there’d been a few times he thought he might turn in everything and switch over to tapes or CDs, but he was glad he’d stuck with records. There was something great about holding them – being able to pick them up, run his fingers over the grooves, feel the weight of them in his hands as he dropped the needle and started to listen.

After the first couple of songs, he figured he might have to get a chair in here if he wanted to keep on with this; it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to just sit on the floor and listen. Maybe sitting in a chair, he wouldn’t be so itchy to get up and move. Going through his usual morning stretches and some push-ups helped kept him from getting too restless to have to head out and start doing something, and between the second and third record, he went ahead and got one of the bigger art books from upstairs to flip through while he listened to dead people sing about their lives. 

It was too bad so much had changed since he’d gotten his record player; it used to be just having one was enough to get a girl to at least come over to your place to check it out. Now if he wanted a woman to come over, he couldn’t just fall back on having stereo speakers.

He had a good enough idea of what not to say to bring a woman home for a few hours, not even the whole night if she didn’t want to – the ones that were a little older, that looked like they were twice his age even if they weren’t, it wasn’t too hard to know what not to say to them, not after the first few tries, the first couple of bars. One woman he brought home he didn’t even fuck, just ended up eating her out and promising her he had a good time anyway. And he did, from the way she looked at him and cuddled close during the night, it was always a good time getting a woman to look at him like that. He even got a good-bye kiss the next morning that tasted like orange juice and maple syrup, and a good story to share with his friends the next time someone asked. Not to brag, but getting a woman off three times in one night was nothing to sneeze at, not at all.

Getting a woman off just once wasn’t that much to speak of, and definitely not enough to just call up someone long-distance in Texas or all the way in Europe just to tell them. It’d been a long time since just getting laid was a big enough deal for him to have to run out and tell the world the moment the deed was done. 

There were other things he knew he definitely had to share the minute he could, the instant he got out of Dr. Swain’s chair. “So that’s it then?”

She smiled. “More or less. Yeah, that’s it. For them, anyway.”

“Wow.”

“Finally, right?”

“Right. Yeah, man, they feel great.” He ran his tongue over his teeth, along the gums as far as he could reach, then ran a fingernail over them – the first time in years there hadn’t been braces there.

“Like little pearls.”

“Sorry?”

Dr. Swain shrugged. “What someone else said when they got theirs off. That their teeth felt like little pearls. And they were right. They look like that when the braces come off.”

“Yeah, yeah they kinda – they really do.” He chuckled, then quieted.

She still had to take a mold for his retainers – one for the top and one for the bottom – and Scout had to make an appointment to come by and pick them up. Once he got them, then he had to sleep with them in every night, or if not every night then almost every night. She said he could miss two or three a month and it’d be okay, but more than that would be asking for more work in her chair.

“So if you sleep over at someone’s house, it’s fine. If you’re being casual, you wouldn’t need to have it with you. But it’s better to remember.”

“Gotcha.”

“Also, See’s is a pretty good caramels.” She smiled. “It’s okay. Everyone goes for caramels right after. Or taffy. Apples, nuts. But you’d said a while back that you wanted caramels. See’s on Market.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. See you in two weeks.”

She was right: they were great caramels. He bought half a pound of them and ate them by the labor statue and went on to play with them while he ate them, chewing as loud as he could and pulling them out with his fingers like they were chewing gum, not caring people were giving him the stink-eye. It was too much fun to know he could eat anything he wanted to again. Even once he got the retainers, he wouldn’t need to cut up his apples anymore. And even though he had to remember about sleeping with them in his mouth, it wasn’t too big a thing for him to really worry about.

Engineer swore up and down about it, as best he could, and even put Dylan on the line. Demo wasn’t too mad about Scout keeping him up to talk about it. Spy was getting a letter about it, and so were Medic and Heavy.

His mother would’ve been so happy.

Scout put the toothbrush down and leaned in to get a better look at his new straight teeth in the bathroom mirror. She really would have loved to see at least one of her kids get himself a job that’d pay enough to get a mouth like what he had now. Nobody had had a mouth like this when he was a kid, not outside of Hollywood. Mouths like this meant money, same as they had back them, money that wasn’t worth spending just on someone’s mouth so they could have good-looking teeth when there was other stuff they needed to worry about. Payments on the house, on the car, making sure everyone stayed warm in winter and had enough to eat, a little for emergencies if it came to that, a little money to keep from worrying too much about not having much. It was something to spend on keeping teeth healthy, but it wasn’t something to spend on making them look good. Not on getting clean, straight teeth like the movie stars had because Scout knew he wanted to finally fix his teeth and maybe, once he looked the part, feel like he belonged where he was now.

His mouth didn’t look all that real, not yet. Maybe when he’d gotten used to looking at it in the mirror it’d look real. He’d managed to get used to having braces, he could get used to not having them. Same way he was going to have to get used to sleeping with the retainers in.

And it was okay for him to skip a night or two every so often – not a bunch, no way, not when he’d paid as much as he had to get his mouth looking this good. But if some woman in a bar thought it was worth her time to take him home, or for her to come with him, if she knew she’d be in for a time good enough to write home about, then it’d be okay to not make a fuss about it and just go without them for a night. 

For some women, telling them he’d gotten his braces off was as good a pick-up line as any other he could have tried. Mostly, he was happy to finally get to talk about it with someone and have them congratulate him. Even if they didn’t really mean it.


	17. Chapter 17

17.

It wasn’t one of those parties where everyone invited everyone else, where people got drunk and windows got broken and it got so huge that as long as nothing exploded and nobody got stabbed it was all right, the sort of party they always had in the movies. The only thing this party had in common with those was that people that got invited were allowed to bring a couple of people that weren’t, but almost nobody did anyway. Scout got in on Jake’s invite because he was military too, but if he didn’t have a pair of dogtags to pull out, no way would he even know this was here. It was one of those parties where everyone stood around in a big fancy room with gigantic windows and drank fancy cocktails out of glasses with long, thin stems and ate tiny sandwiches and talked quietly. And it was fun to get to be in a party like they had in the movies – a different kind of movie, but it was still from them – and get a chance to eat tiny sandwiches and sip expensive drinks while people even older than him got congratulated for things they’d done a long time ago. He moved around the room between the people in the crowd, not having a whole lot to say and not having anyone to say it to, and he wasn’t the only one who ended up outside to get a little air.

There was one guy walking away towards the cemetery, and a man and a woman sitting on the curb on the far side of a streetlight, and another guy who was heading back inside. Scout left them alone, heading out to where it was harder to hear the drum of the party. He could still see a little light on the Bay, an early June evening drawing out the sunset. Out by the Officer’s Club he had a pretty good view of the sky and once he moved off a bit there was nobody around to ask him about things he didn’t want to share. Just him and the sky, at least until he had company. He heard them coming and waited until they’d stopped walking to turn around to look.

She was as tall as him thanks to her heels, looked like she belonged here more than he did with her in a dress uniform and him just in a nice suit, with her hair pulled up in the kind of tight bun almost every woman at the party was wearing. And there wasn’t anyone else out here but the two of them.

He turned around to make it look like he was heading back inside, and once he was nearly at the door, spun about to head over and stand next to her.

“You too, huh?”

She sighed. “It’s not a bad shindig, the way these things go, but I’ve been to better. Once they break out the cigars it’s okay to say you need to catch some air.”

“Yeah, sure. Nobody wants t’be stuck inside with that.”

“Petra.” She stuck out her hand, and when he grabbed it he was surprised to get a good handshake out of it. Most girls didn’t try to shake back, and he figured it was a military thing. She’d actually been invited, got an envelope addressed to her and everything, on the actual guest list and not just someone’s plus-one – and she knew Jake, too, not all that well but good enough to nod when Scout said he was here with him.

“I kept tellin’ him t’find a nice girl, plenty of girls out there’d be happy t’come along to a party like this, keep him from havin’ to drag a guy along, but hey, I ain’t complainin’.” It was full dark by then, a clear night with no fog and almost no stars from all the city’s lights, and not warm enough to make either of them want to go back inside. They could hear it getting louder, all the congratulations and birthday wishes, more drinks for everyone. “You think they got the cake out by now?”

“Probably.” She laughed. “I wouldn’t bet on it, not with this crowd, but you want to go back in and check?”

“You wanna come with?”

Petra crossed her arms, looked Scout up and down. “Sure, let’s.”

There were still about ten minutes to cake according to the catering guy on his way to the kitchen. “You wanna head back outside?”

She shook her head. “Ten minutes, we might as well hang around. Good chance to get a corner piece.”

“Oh, no, there’s a chance for a corner piece, I’m callin’ dibs.”

“Ladies first.”

“Not for a corner piece, oh hell no, no way. Whoever gets there first, it’s theirs, they earned it.”

“Just for showing up and getting to the front of the line?”

“Yep.”

She nodded slowly. “So let me guess – you’ve got how many brothers, three? Four?”

“Seven – hey, what?”

She smirked. “I’ve got three of ’em, and I love the bastards, but trust me, I know that look.” They stood back to let the cake through, a big red-and-white sheet cake that Scout knew would taste sweet and bland, something pretty much just there for the frosting. They started following it, along with everyone else in the building. Scout wove through the crowd, darting between people when he spotted an opening, and managed to get to the front of the crowd by the time they started singing the song and cutting it, planting himself as the second person in line, weaving back into the crowd when the first corner piece started going around and got to him, then thought better of it, went back to the front, and when he found Petra about a third of the way back from the cake-cutting itself, handed her another slice.

“It ain’t a corner, but edge pieces are still good pretty good.”

“Hey, you got up there, you earned that.” The frosting clung to the little plastic forks and it was pretty much the only thing holding the cake together, the thick white stuff on the base and the top corner plus a bit of the thinner, goopier, red lettering that managed to get to the edge of the cake. It was too fancy a party for the cake to have sprinkles, but it had two layers and a little bit of frosting in between those, so it wasn’t totally a loss.

Petra swallowed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Thanks for getting this for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked around the room, settling back on Scout. “Walk me home?”

Scout glanced through the crowd, trying to spot a familiar face and failing on the first pass, and flashed his still-new million-dollar-smile. “Yeah, c’mon, let’s go.” It’d dropped a couple of degrees while they’d been inside and it made the party seem louder as they walked away, heading east up the road. “You know, you got the right idea. After they cut the cake, there really ain’t too many reasons to stick around.”

“It’s Sunday tomorrow so I don’t need to be up early, I could stick around another hour or two – but really, everyone’s getting to the just-one-more-drink phase and I’d rather skip the whole thing.” She rubbed her hands together and stuck them into her pockets, glancing up at the sky from the middle of the road. There weren’t any cars following them back into the Presidio; everyone who lived in it was walking, just like them.

Home turned out to be one of the houses out on Ruckman Avenue, with Petra’s bedroom on the top corner facing out east towards the sunrises. Even with the trees across the street, she promised it was the best view in the house.

“We eat breakfast on the porch sometimes, when we have a little more time to a morning. If the fog hasn’t cleared off yet, we’ll usually share a big pot of oatmeal and just sit and watch it for a while.”

“Man, tell me about it. Goin’ out running in fog, nobody said it’d be so much fun – the way nothin’ looks real, the way all the lights get so soft…”

“The foghorns.”

“Oh god, the foghorns. You never think they’re gonna sound good, then you get used to ’em and suddenly it’s nice hearin’ ’em blow. Kinda like whales.”

“Yeah. Like whales.” She smiled at him, gave him another handshake. “Thanks for walking me back.”

“No problem.”

“Have a good one.” She was up the stairs and in the house before he could say anything else, and it wasn’t until he was halfway home he realized he hadn’t gotten her telephone number.

He had gotten her address, though, and it wouldn’t take too much to head on back there with something to let her know his intentions – a gentleman’s intentions, like they used to say. Show that he was serious but didn’t want to come on too fast or too crude, and if she didn’t want to do the same with him then he was gentleman enough to handle it. A box of chocolates, every woman liked chocolates, and a bunch of roses plus a little vase to put them in before they’d die off. Just a half-dozen yellow ones with a little pink on the edges of the petals, nothing too big, bought fresh the next Thursday afternoon and in hand when he rang the doorbell.

“Hello?” 

He almost did a double-take at the short blonde that opened the door, but held himself back.

“Uh, is Petra in?”

“No, she won’t be back for another hour or so. What’s all this?”

“Just, just stuff for her. We, ah, we met at the officer’s birthday last week, she might’ve said somethin’ about me.”

“She might have.” The woman nodded slowly. “You’re the one who walked her home?”

“Yeah! That’d be me, right here.”

“Okay. I’ll let her know you were here.” She took the box and the vase, holding them both gently.

“Hey, thanks.”

“Have a good night.”

It’d taken a couple of days to work up the nerve to write the note he’d stuck in the box, another to get himself to call Hardhat and ask for some advice on what it should and shouldn’t say. Engineer had been plenty happy to talk to Scout, more than happy even with his son almost a year old and being more of a fuss than ever. He was happy to talk to Scout for a while and let him read the note out loud, and tell him what would and wouldn’t work to sweet-talk a woman into giving him a call.

It’d worked, too. He’d been reading in his bedroom, curled up against his bed with the radio going, and when the phone rang he’d scrambled to turn it off and get the phone before whoever was on the other end hung up. When he heard Petra thanking him for the chocolates, he did a little victory dance right there in the kitchen, promised to call Engineer back and let him know, and then asked Petra to say that again since he’d missed it.

“Just that the roses were really sweet of you, and if Saturday night works, I can make sure I’m free.”

“That’s great, that’ll work just fine, Saturday, am I pickin’ you up or are we meetin’ there?”

“I figured you’d pick me up and surprise me.”

“You could give me your number, let me call you once I get a reservation for us.”

“Yeah, I could,” she said with a soft laugh, then gave it to him, once to say and a second time once he had a pen to write it down. “If you can make it for seven or seven-thirty, that’d be great.”

“Seven-thirty. Got it.”


	18. Chapter 18

18.

Petra’s grandfather on her mother’s side was a gunnery sergeant at Pendleton, and his wife had been his secretary before they’d married. Her father’s father was a colonel and her grandmother was a warrant officer, and they hadn’t needed a lot of time to get wise to each other. Her mother was a housewife and her father was still working at Fort Meyer, with her three brothers around the country at West Point, Leavenworth, and Quantico. When Petra had turned eighteen, she’d driven downtown to sign up with the draft board, and she’d been stationed in the Presidio for almost fifteen months.

Her first date with Scout had gone well enough to get a second, going from a little seafood place out in the Marina to a little North Beach café right in the shadow of Telegraph Hill, drinking their coffee and waiting on their soup.

“I was through here once when I was a kid.” She gestured around the restaurant, wrapping up all of San Francisco with a sweep of her wrist. “We spent a long weekend, you know, the zoo, museums, and – it’s a lot nicer now that it’s gotten the chance to grow up a little. It’s not a sin to say you vote Republican anymore. Well.” She took a long sip of her wine. “Maybe it is, but it’s not a cardinal one.”

“Definitely not at the Presidio.”

“Not there, right. I meant out on the street, somewhere in the Sunset, nobody’s going to hiss at me if I say I voted against Dukakis.”

“An’ if you say you work for the army?”

“Then I stand up straight, pull my shoulders back –” She did both, taking a breath, “– and remind myself what I stand for, which includes protecting those that don’t appreciate what I do.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame the way times’ve changed. Used to be no matter who you asked you’d get respect for the uniform, even if it wasn’t for the person wearin’ it. An’ even then they’d be polite about it.” The waiter finally drifted over with their soup – beef and barley for Petra and fish for Scout – and he took a moment to eat up the warm, herbed smells coming from both bowls before he went on. “The stories my dad told me, the stories your granddads must’ve told you, it ain’t that world anymore, an’ it’s a goddamn shame.”

“Amen to that.”

She’d only had an hour to spare for lunch and couldn’t afford to linger over another cup of coffee or a piece of pastry, not even for fresh panna cotta. Scout walked her back to the bus stop that’d take her right by the gates, making sure he was on the outer side of the sidewalk the whole way there. He knew she was a nice girl, a lot more of a woman than other girls he’d dated, and a nice woman like her had to be treated right.

These days, that meant going Dutch instead of him paying for everything, but if that meant a little argument that settled with her paying for the museum tickets and him getting lunch, that seemed better than splitting everything right down the middle. The De Young hadn’t been one of the museums she’d gone to way back when, even though she remembered driving through the park at night and thinking she was in some other world, and he hadn’t gotten around to visiting it yet either. Neither of them had been inside the science museum across the way either, and the way Petra said they could go there next time they had an afternoon – just coming out and saying it so easily, nothing big to it – made it hard to keep from grinning ear to ear.

Maybe they’d go see dinosaurs and crocodiles and a planetarium another time, and he was fine with that, but as soon as they got inside the De Young, he knew he’d have to come back to this one on his own as soon as he could. The stuff it had – the paintings it had were almost all newer than just about everything at the Legion of Honor, and almost all of them American, too, not European. He still knew enough to impress Petra plenty well when they walked through those galleries and the rooms of photographs too. The rest of them, he was about as clueless as she was, had no idea what to say about the African sculptures and the Chinese tapestries, not even the American sculptures that were supposed to be something specific and not the artist trying to be crazy and throw metal around like paint.

“An’ the chairs?” The café was pretty nice as art museum cafés went, with more than three kinds of sandwiches to choose from and lemonade made with real sugar that came in glass bottles. “They’re nice an’ all, some real nice chairs in there, but the one at the end, the one with the green velvet –”

“Who’d sit on a chair like that?”

“Yeah. I mean, okay, it’s art, it ain’t supposed t’be sat on, it’s supposed t’say somethin’ about, y’know, the idea of chairs an’ how fancy chairs ain’t supposed t’be sat in, somethin’ like that, but – it’s a chair, why even make a chair like that?”

“Got me.” She unwrapped her chicken salad, and Scout took a bite of his tuna. “Not that you can’t have something with some function that’s also pretty. The Ohlone gallery with the baskets and bowls, or th’rest of the chairs. I guess I’d rather look at something where it’s easier to see what it’s trying to tell me.”

“It was a nice chair, though.”

“Give it t’the dinner guest you wanna make leave early.”

“Got that right.”

She didn’t have to head back to the Presidio right away like she had last time and it was a nice enough afternoon that they spent some time just walking through the park, past the sphinxes at the entrance through the sycamores and the rest of the woods. When they ran out of park, they were near enough to it that it didn’t seem right not to invite her over to his house. He had better coffee at his place than she’d had at the museum café, there was at least that much he could offer. That, and a pretty decent gun collection he’d built up over the years if she wanted to check it out.

When they got there, Petra almost didn’t want to leave the garage.

“Did you do the modding yourself?”

“Yeah. I borrowed some tools for it, but yeah, I did the work myself.”

She nodded, putting the sawed-off Browning back in place and gently picking up the 1908 Vest Pocket. Once she’d checked it was unloaded, she hefted it in her hands, pointed it at the wall and peered down the barrel. “What was this one for?”

Scout shrugged. “It looked like it’d be fun t’try out an’ see.”

“No, I mean it’s almost the kind of gun that goes in a purse. Did you want to try target shooting with it?”

“Yeah, sure. Yeah, target shooting.” As long as the BLU Soldier or Demoman was a target, that was true. “It’s mostly what I use these for now, anyway. Never went huntin’, don’t get much – hey, you wanna go out shootin’ at the range sometime?”

“You know, I would.” She closed the door behind them and followed him into the kitchen. “We always did shooting out at my granddad’s, my dad’s father, and it’s been way too long since I’ve used a shotgun. I need to get up there and see him.”

“Jus’ t’shoot a shotgun?”

“Not just to shoot a shotgun, no, but that’d be a nice part of it. He’s a great guy. Kind of getting up there in years.” Scout nodded as he measured out the coffee and set the machine going. “My grandma had to fight to get him to retire when he did, and then mostly because he didn’t want to get stuck in an office all day. I can think of worse things, but you know, for him that was the worst thing he could think of. He’s out in the mountains, up near Oregon.”

“You invitin’ me t’come with you?”

“Not yet I’m not. But you play your cards right and I just might.” They settled in the living room to wait, the coffeepot’s gurgling and bubbling following them as she sat on the couch and he settled in an armchair across from her. “You’d like it there. You get a real autumn when you’re out there.”

“Sounds real nice.”

“There’s a wood-burning stove in the living room. It gets the whole place nice and cozy.”

“Quit teasin’.”

“I’m not.”

“No, you’re teasin’. We ain’t been together long enough t’introduce me to your family, fine, I know that. You don’t need t’go remindin’ me all the time right now.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Good.” He shifted around in his chair, pulling up one foot to hook it under the opposite knee. “’Cause if you were, I didn’t appreciate –”

“Hey, I know, how about you listen to what I’m saying and not what you think I’m saying? I like you, and I think I like you well enough to get serious enough to invite you to my grandpa’s place, and I’m not trying to tease you or bullshit you about it. I’m trying to flirt, so if you want –”

“I just want –”

“Listen, whatever you’re hearing isn’t what I’m trying to say to you.”

“You ain’t listenin’ when you’re askin’ me t’listen. I don’t like it when someone’s tryin’ t’get a rise outta me, or go around pokin’ fun, an’ it sure as hell felt like it just now.”

“All right. You know what I was just saying, I really don’t think you need to – okay, you know what? I’m going to wait outside, right here, until the coffee’s done, and you come and get me then.” Petra managed to stalk the three paces from the couch to the door and stood there a moment rattling at the handle until she got the latch to fall into place and yanked the door open. She tried to slam it shut but it was on runners, and the most she could do was jerk it closed.

Scout stomped over to hurry up and wait in the kitchen, listening to the coffee boil as the smell filled up the kitchen and the house.

It wasn’t done when Petra came back in. “Hey, look –”

“I’ll call you.” And she was out the door, no questions asked, not even turning around and coming back for a cup of coffee like he’d promised her.

The shit thing was that it turned out to be a really great pot of the stuff.

Slightly less of a shit thing was that she actually called him a few hours later when he’d gotten back from a run to the ocean and back. Scout hadn’t thought she’d call – he’d been pretty sure ‘I’ll call you’ was just one of those things people said when they didn’t want to say ‘I’m never gonna talk to you ever again’ – and he definitely hadn’t thought she’d apologize right away.

“I’m sorry it all came out like that.” He stayed quiet and listened to her breathe. “I wasn’t teasing and I’m sorry it came out that way for you. I didn’t want it to, and I really didn’t mean for it to sound like that.”

“Thanks.”

“I would, I mean I really would like you to come out to his ranch with me sometime, but it’s been three dates, that’s barely enough to – okay. We both got angry over something we can both agree wasn’t smart to get angry about, can we both agree on that and then apologize to each other?”

“Yeah. We can do that.”

“Will we?”

“I’ll do it if you will.”

“Then I’m doing it right now. I apologize.”

“Then I’m apologizin’ too.”

“Okay.” She sighed, and took a deep breath, and Scout could imagine her standing up straighter and pulling her shoulders back from the sound of that one breath. “Do you want to come out here for the Fourth fireworks next week?”

“Do I ever.”

They met at her house and claimed their turf almost two hours before the show, spreading a blanket near a corner of Chrissy Airfield out near the water with an open view of the Bay and the sunset. He pulled a couple of fancy-sounding sandwiches and two bottles of blood orange soda from Bambino’s out of his pack, but Petra did him one better and pulled two bottles of beer out of her purse. “Hey, now we’re talkin’, now we got a party goin’. What else you got in there?”

“The usual stuff – wallet, keys, lipstick, make-up, pens, pocketknife, tampons, hand sanitizer, oh, and four more beers if you want some later.”

“Hey, thanks, I’ll let’cha know.”

“No problem.”

Other people were doing their own picnics, one guy over there, another couple over here, some families spread around wherever they could get enough room for all the kids. One family had all three of its kids feeding seagulls and Scout was more than happy to see the birds flying all the way down the field instead of stopping anywhere near him. The place was filling up as the day got done, more people with blankets, some with towels, a few getting shooed away from a roped-off area that couldn’t have people sitting right up next to it.

Scout leaned back on his elbows to stare at the sunset marking up the bottom of a few thin, fading clouds and laughed out loud when he remembered that one year ages ago, the Bicentennial, when Pyro and Demo had almost got into a fight over who should put up the fireworks display. They’d trounced BLU in Hoodoo and had the base to themselves for a couple of days, long enough to celebrate independence, and the two of them needed Soldier of all people to break up the yelling match that almost became a fistfight over who’d get to set up and set off the fireworks.

“Something on your mind?”

“Nah, nothin’. Jus’ thinkin’ about old times.”

“Listen, about the other day –”

“It’s fine. No worries.”

“No, just – give me a minute to hear me out, all right? I wasn’t teasing you, I was trying to do the whole – I can see how it could’ve been, you could’ve seen me teasing you, and I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for that.” He patted her on the knee, and she looked down at his hand, then out to the water.

“Like I said, no worries.”

When she looked down at him, she was smiling, faintly. “Isn’t that an Australian thing to say?”

Scout twirled his hand in the air. “Yeah, maybe. I worked with an Australian for a while, you pick things up.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“No shit.”

“I ain’t kiddin’.” He sat up to be right next to her. “An’ a Scotsman, a Frenchman, a German, a Russian – we, ah, we didn’t work together too long, but yeah, a whole lotta us together, from all over the world.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“I’ll tell you some other time.” Petra blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it slowly as she nodded.

“You want another beer?”

“Yeah, hit me up.”

Even if it was July, it was still San Francisco, and the wind off the water made Petra shiver. Scout draped his track jacket around her shoulders and she pulled her arms into the sleeves, wrapped them back around her knees. All the clouds were gone, and the city was bright behind them, over the hills and past the trees, lighting up the sky as night really started coming in.

“Is it too early to say – no. Sorry, forget it.”

“No, don’t do that, no way, a girl does that, she wants t’be all coy, get her boy t’say no, you say it, an’ yeah, you say it, but next time you don’t need t’do the whole ‘no I’m sorry’ thing, it’s fine t’just say it.”

“All right. I was gonna say you remind me a little of my grandpa. Not my granddad, my dad’s father, I mean my mom’s father. And – my dad too, a bit. It’s just there’s something – you remind me of them a little bit. Age-old lifelong military men. I mean this all in a good way. You’re a lot more old-fashioned than most guys, you’ll walk on the outside of the street. They had that, too, the traditional values, how to be a gentleman. And there were times that there was no way they could ever stand joking around, when everything had to be dead serious, when there was no getting them mad. Like I said, I mean this all in a good way. I mean that it’s not bad you remind me of my grandpa.” She wasn’t smiling anymore, staring him right in the eyes without looking away, and it took Scout a moment to figure out what to say and if it’d be all right to smile.

“Thanks. An’ listen, a girl tells her boyfriend he reminds her of her grandpa, it’s a real nice thing t’hear.” Scout wrapped an arm around Petra to pull her close, and she leaned in against his side before he got there. He was glad she couldn’t see his face and the silly, big smile on it. “Real nice.”

“Shhh, it’s starting.”

The minute the last sparks cleared out from the sky, the last bits of the grand finale that lit up everything like it was daytime, he and Petra were on their feet, getting a move on to beat the crowds heading out. He walked her home again, taking the long way around over the hills to keep away from everyone, and this time ending the night with a kiss before saying good-bye. It was cozy in his place and he was usually fine with sleeping alone, but he still sometimes thought it might be nice to share the space.


	19. Chapter 19

19.

He ordered for both of them, like a good old-fashioned gentleman was supposed to, a bottle of wine from a place in Napa a few hours away by car to share, salad and pasta with chicken from the menu for her, soup and the special of the day for him. It was some pasta he’d never heard of before that came with a rabbit sauce and it’d been way too long since he’d had good rabbit. Petra looked surprised after she heard him order and he knew he hadn’t mangled the name of the pasta too bad.

“You’ve got one for a tattoo, and you still eat them?”

“Yeah, so?”

“It seems just a little wrong somehow.”

“Relax, it ain’t a big deal. So they’re important t’me, doesn’t mean I can’t eat ’em in a nice restaurant with a nice lady with me. They’re good meat. An’ the tat ain’t of the ones from the kitchen here, it’s more kinda the idea of them, or the ones out runnin’ through the hills out in the wild.”

“I guess I can see that.” Their wine arrived and they tapped their glasses before taking a drink. Scout hadn’t expected it to be so good and was glad he’d gone for a bottle – kind of light and fruity the way other red wines he’d had weren’t.

“It’s a nice thing to think about.” She took another long sip. “Rabbits running wild out in the hills. Out through all the tall summer grass.”

“Yeah, real nice t’think about.”

Petra nodded, tore off a corner from a slice of bread and dabbed it in the olive oil. She chewed carefully, looking out the window down the street – they were just a few blocks up from the Transamerica Pyramid and all the tourists were walking back and forth, but no noise came through the glass, just the sight them walking under the streetlights in the early winter night. When the food came, he offered her a taste of his soup that she traded for a taste of her salad, and soon enough the table was empty again and he was halfway through his second glass.

“You know people can catch rabbits with their bare hands?”

“What?”

“No, really. No arrows, no bullets, no snares, no nothin’. Just bare hands.”

“And how the hell do they do that?”

“Outrun ’em.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, you just keep runnin’ – see, most animals can’t just keep on runnin’ like people can, they go for a while an’ then they gotta stop, cheetahs, deer, they can’t keep goin’, rabbits can’t keep runnin’ for anythin’ close t’the time people can run. So you gotta get a rabbit, pick it out, an’ run after it, keep runnin’ and I mean keep runnin’, follow it an’ don’t let it stop ’till it falls down. An’ then you catch it.” He leaned back for the waiter to put down their appetizers. “Yeah, it’s how they hunt gazelles out in Africa. Once it’s all tired they don’t even need t’run, just keep walkin’ until it falls down, an’ then they take it back home with ’em. Persistence, yeah, it’s persistence hunting.”

“That – that actually sounds really neat.”

“Yeah, it ain’t easy. I mean, not that it would be easy t’do. You go huntin’ with your granddad?”

“No. Targets and skeets, but no animals.”

“Well, it’s out in the mountains, all kinds’a places t’hide, you gotta get a big open space an’ good luck findin’ one of those out here, you gotta head way out to, I dunno, somewhere out in the Central Valley somewhere, some place you got plenty of room t’run an’ run.”

“Right. Solano, Stockton, Fresno, Davis, someplace out there.”

“Like that, yeah. Anyway, you find someone that can keep runnin’ longer than a rabbit, you find a rabbit, you get a place like that, I’m tellin’ ya, the guy’s gonna get that bunny.”

“I believe you,” she said with a laugh. That laugh was what they needed, and they kept on talking about nothing important, all the tourists coming and going and maybe going to the City Lights bookstore to get something new to read – if Petra wanted some suggestions Scout had plenty – and soon enough they got their main courses. Some cheese grated over both, a dash of fresh-ground pepper for Petra, and Scout speared a piece of rabbit before he even went for the pasta. He chewed it slowly, washed it down with a drink of wine, and then tried the noodles. They weren’t like anything he’d had before, soft and chewy little balls of dough with tiny ridges across the top, and he traded a taste with Petra, who’d eaten them a couple of times. She said they were one of the better ones she’d had.

When their waiter came by, Scout flagged him down, just to ask what was in the gnocchi, and after their waiter told him, he managed to nod politely until he was out of earshot.

“Oh, fuck me.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’. These are delicious, an’ I love ’em, an’ I’d love t’have ’em again sometime, they’re a really great pasta, I never had anything like ’em before.” He wiped a hand down his face. “An’ they’re made outta potatoes.”

“What’s wrong with potatoes?”

“Nothin’. They’re great, they’re good eatin’, they’re – okay, I grew up with potatoes, they were on the dinner table pretty much every night. My family, we didn’t have a whole lotta money when I was growin’ up, we ate potatoes. An’ I don’t hate ’em, they’re good food, I just – when I got, when I got my first big job, livin’ in my own place, livin’ alone, no family no army nobody tellin’ me what t’eat, even before that, when I was maybe twelve, I told myself when I got a job an’ an apartment like that, nobody tellin’ me what t’eat, I’d never eat potatoes again.” Scout looked down at the gnocchi and rabbit ragù, one of the best meals he’d ever had in San Francisco.

“Twenty-five years.”

“Sorry?”

“So many years.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It’s fine, you don’t need t’be.”

“Are you going to send it back?”

“Nah.” He poked at one of the gnocchi and then speared it on his fork, taking a moment to just stare at it before he chewed and swallowed, very carefully. “I guess it ain’t so bad.”

“They are really good.”

“Maybe if I’d had potatoes like this when I was little – you’d never find a place like this where I grew up, never, but I mean, if my mother could’ve made these, maybe I wouldn’t’ve wanted t’swear off them.”

“I know what you mean.” Scout whipped his head up to stare at her, sitting straight up with his fork and knife clenched tight. “My mother’s a lovely woman, and I love her with all my heart, but she has never made a good baked eggplant. And I mean never. She’ll follow a recipe exactly, every single instruction, and it still comes out soggy or burned or soggy and burned. And it wasn’t until about a year ago I could even stand to think about eating eggplant.”

Scout nodded and poured the last of the bottle into Petra’s glass. “Eggplant’s nice.”

“Yeah, I know that now. But when I was a kid…”

“Gotcha.”

When it came time to order dessert, it was kind of nice to do the gentleman routine and surprise Petra twice in one night.

“Look, you want to skip sleeping until next Tuesday, be my guest.”

“One, it’s a single espresso, not a double or triple, an’ two, trust me, it ain’t that much caffeine compared t’some things I’ve had, you know there’s this Russian tea – Чифи́рь – they used t’make it in the Gulags back when they had Gulags, you couldn’t get any good booze in there so what you’d do is brew up like three tablespoons of tea per person for ten minutes an’ drink two sips.”

“Ouch.”

“Hey, you gotta get your kicks in.”

“You’ve had that?”

“Once, an’ that was enough.” He grinned. “An’ there’s some sodas I used t’drink an’ they don’t make – I mean, you can’t find ’em nowadays, but they were big back East when I was a kid, you know how hard it is t’find soda made with sugar these days? You really gotta hunt ’em down, I got good luck in the Mission, but that’s pretty much it.”

“I’ve never seen the point of diet soda. You’re on a diet, drink water. You want a soda, have a goddamn soda.”

“Amen to that.”

“And if you want some gelato…” She smiled and took a long, slow lick of her spoonful. Afterwards, her kiss tasted like salted caramel and coffee, and that was something he knew he’d have to try again sometime.

It’d been Soldier who’d told him about the rabbits. Scout hadn’t believed him at first – at least half what Soldier said wasn’t real outside of his head and that’d sounded like one of those things. Then Sniper backed him up, and Engineer too, and even then Scout didn’t think it was something that could really be true. But Engineer explained how most animals couldn’t keep running and Sniper swore he knew at least three guys that hunted deer that way out in the bush, and if it was something that other people said was real, then maybe Soldier hadn’t been pulling his leg.

They’d been up at Lumberyard, with no way to see if he could put it to the test, and from there it was Steel, Frontier, Thunder Mountain, even when they got to Gullywash BLU ousted them in just a few days. He’d had to wait until they got to Harvest for everything to be right, for his team to win and get him the time to try it and for there be a place for him to try it in.

So the day after RED got its victory, he’d set out to catch a rabbit. It’d been hard finding one – harder than he’d thought, since they were supposed to be everywhere and he wasn’t even wearing boots, just sneakers. He found some burrows and tried just standing still nearby but that didn’t do much to get them to come out, so he kept walking and looking and hoping this wouldn’t be a complete bust of an afternoon, when he could be helping Demo practice with his swords.

When he looked back to see how far away he was from the base, how much ground he’d managed to cover, he looked the other way, and that was what got him to stop. The only horizon in Boston was the ocean and most times he never got far enough from the base to really get a good look at what a whole lot of nothing looked like. There was the sky, and grass, and little breezes blowing over his face, and the world going on and on until it reached the horizon and it kept going after that. Standing up on its hind legs staring right at him was a rabbit.

And Scout took off running.

It wasn’t like chasing the BLU Spy or Demoman or even the Scout. He had to keep going, no shooting, no dodging, no jumping, just running, nothing but running. The rabbit zigged and zagged and kept tearing up the ground and Scout was always right behind it – his own feet tearing up the ground as he slammed them down and pushing off on his toes, heart pumping, lungs going, wind almost cutting into his face and he kept on running. When the rabbit looked back and saw Scout coming, it’d try to go even faster and he matched its pace to keep up, to not lose it, to never stop chasing it. He knew it’d keep running for as long as he was chasing it, that the rabbit was chasing the horizon, and that he would run after it forever.

Not until it finally collapsed with a tired little sigh. It just flopped over, and that was all.

He stopped when it did, still a ways away, and walked over – it shivered and blinked and didn’t even try to bite him when he scooped it up into his satchel and slung it back on. They’d gone out far enough he couldn’t even see the base and he took a moment to look at all the nothing around him before turning around and going back. A lot slower this time; he had someone coming with him.

His legs hadn’t hurt this much in years, he was pretty sure he could feel all the insides of his lungs, and all he wanted was a cold shower and an even colder bottle of beer. But when he got back to the base, the first thing he did was start looking for everybody and rounding them up. He made sure everyone was there when he opened his bag to show off the rabbit. And the looks on their faces told him what he’d done had been worth all the trouble, all the waiting, every second of it, just to get everyone to look at him like that. 

Then Engineer said they ought to eat it for dinner. Scout hadn’t thought that part through – he’d thought he’d just catch it and let it go, just to prove he’d done it for everyone – but then Heavy said he should, and Demo did too. He knew how good rabbit tasted when it was roasted in the oven, and he really couldn’t just let it go after all the work he’d done to catch it. So he handed the rabbit over to Medic, who’d calmed it down right away, pushing it into the crook of his elbow, petting it over its ears and face and murmuring quietly. He sat down, lowering it into his lap and onto its back where it lay still with all four legs in the air, eyes closed and nose twitching. And he stroked it over its face again, whispered something in German, put his hands around its head, and snapped its neck all quick and clean.

When Spy cleaned it, Sniper said Scout ought to be the one to eat the heart. Scout had told him he was welcome to it if he cared about it so much, only for Sniper to laugh and say he was flattered but he’d rather not. So Spy cooked Scout the heart all by itself, just for him, and it looked almost too small on the plate for him to eat. Then he’d remembered the looks everyone gave him, and the chase the rabbit had taken him for, and knew that for the first time he was the one who’d gotten dinner on the table that night.

He ate it in two bites, and he’d never had rabbit that good. Even the ragout over the gnocchi at the restaurant hadn’t been that good.

And even though he wasn’t nearly as tired as he’d been that night, he got to sleep just fine.

It would’ve been nice to tell Petra about the rabbit, but then he’d have had to explain the rest of the story besides just him catching it – how he’d learned about persistence hunting and where he’d been when he’d tried it out. Maybe she wouldn’t have asked much but she might have, and he knew it was better if he didn’t give her anything to ask about. It went easier if he didn’t make things about himself and kept them like they were stories he’d heard a while ago. It was hard to make sure everything mercenary-sensitive came out that way, always checking himself before he opened up his mouth, but it was still better than what she might ask if he didn’t. Sometimes he couldn’t keep it that way. If it’d been Barbara or Charlie asking the questions Petra asked, maybe he could’ve, but not Petra. He couldn’t always bullshit his way into something that sounded true enough when she’d call him on it. He could say he wasn’t going to talk about it, or that he didn’t know what she was talking about, or lie, and sometimes he’d tell her the truth. 

They were cuddling together under the covers, dawdling a bit before she’d either get up to go back to her place or ask him what she could borrow to sleep in. He’d made sure she finished at least twice and he’d had a pretty good time himself on top of that. She sat up to stretch out her arms over her head before laying back down.

“You’ve got your Christmas plans?”

“Yeah, pretty much – Midnight Mass, might try findin’ a place servin’ goose or just go out for oysters like I did last year. You’re still headin’ up t’Oregon, right? No, wait – that was Thanksgiving, sorry. So where’s the family goin’ for Christmas? You told me, right?”

“It’s fine. And it’s Virginia. All the grandparents gotta see the new baby, the new aunts and uncles gotta stop by.”

“Should I get her somethin’?”

“I’m sure my parents would love it. You can if you want.”

“It can’t be nice, havin’ a birthday so close t’Christmas.”

“She’ll be fine.” Petra rolled over onto her back and laced her hands underneath her head, and Scout scooted up to rest his back against the headboard. “You know, I never asked – when’s your birthday?”

“November eighteenth.”

“Wait, what?” She pushed herself up to sit next to him. “That was almost a month ago.”

“Yeah, and?”

“I thought…I don’t know. I guess I’d thought you might tell me. And don’t go into that ‘you never asked’ bullshit.”

“Well, you didn’t.”

She smacked him on the shoulder. “You cooked me dinner for my birthday, a guy that cares enough to find out behind his girlfriend’s back –”

“All I did was ask your housemate –”

“A guy that cares enough to ask about his girlfriend’s birthday, is the kind of guy his girlfriend expects to make some sort of deal out of his own. So I’m kind of lost on why you didn’t.”

“It’s just a birthday.”

“I guess.”

“It’s just – they mean more when you’re a kid, it’s a bigger thing movin’ from nine t’ten or ten to eleven, you get older an’ it ain’t so big anymore. By the time you get to, I dunno, to forty you wanna ignore it an’ pretend it’s just another Tuesday. And…you forget a couple, you find out you missed it by like a week, an’ you realize it ain’t as important as it used t’be.”

“It really doesn’t matter at all anymore?”

“Not really.” He felt her lean against him and didn’t pull away.

“I guess it means I never have to worry about finding you a tie.”

Scout laughed and gave her a kiss, but even with her sleeping in his arms he couldn’t get to sleep himself.

His first birthday on the field had been on the team’s first mission in Badlands – the first year of the war, all the way back in 1967. They’d almost gotten everything under RED’s control when the BLU team started fighting back like they’d just woken up, going into what Pyro used to call ‘balls-to-the-wall’ offence, and they weren’t even calling it off for four hours’ sleep a night, not even giving anyone enough time to take a decent crap in the morning. There wasn’t anything they could do except try to keep pace and make sure they’d kept what they’d gotten already, see to it that BLU didn’t get to keep anything, and not let up until someone won for certain. Respawn and dispensers and the medigun made up the difference and let them keep going as long as they had to, keep on running until someone called it. It ain’t over ’till it’s over and all that good stuff.

They’d won in the end, gotten all the points united for RED, and he’d felt pretty damn good about himself, at least until he’d checked the calendar in the locker room. Really took a good look at it, stopped to make sure he’d counted the days right and hadn’t forgotten any of the nights either. They’d started bleeding into each other after the second and he couldn’t remember if there were three or four, but checking the calendar Scout found out it’d been six. And the day before yesterday had been his birthday.

He thought turning twenty would’ve meant more. He’d known it was coming; he’d tried to remember even if he couldn’t do anything but make sure he remembered. It’d just been one more day.

More days happened, and some more after that, and he’d meant it when he said by the time he’d gotten to forty birthdays he’d stopped trying to care anymore. Scout didn’t know why he wanted to get mad at Petra for reminding him of what he’d been trying to forget, but that he wanted to and couldn’t.

When she got up the next morning, he’d gotten back from a run, gotten the coffee and oatmeal going, and he was already sitting down to the table when she got out of the shower.


	20. Chapter 20

20.

When he’d asked her about it on their first date, she’d explained she gone in for the Quartermaster Corps because it had the least bullshit attached to it. There was politics, like with everything in a big enough organization, there were petty grievances and the right games to play and moves to make, and being part of QC meant she wouldn’t need to do anything close to the amount of asskissing necessary to manage promotions as she would anywhere else in the army. The way she told him over their appetizers at Acquerello, the amount of asskissing she was willing to do, anywhere else in any other branch she’d be lucky to make corporal by the time she was forty. But in the QC she’d made staff sergeant by the time she was twenty-seven. 

And even with all that, she liked the work itself, the fact of being useful. There was power attached to it, sure, and some security in knowing that if someone pissed her off more than he should’ve then he’d have to go without soap or socks or new light bulbs for six weeks. But more of the power came from knowing what she was doing was supporting as many people as she possibly could from one single post. It wasn’t like other office jobs she might’ve gotten at her age or other jobs she could get outside of the military – nothing else could get her close to where she was and doing so much for so many.

When she’d been a little kid, she’d wanted to be like her grandfather, her mother’s father, and when she’d grown up a bit she realized she didn’t want to be just like him, not with what she’d have to do to get there. If things were a little different with women in the marines she might’ve gone there instead of the army, and she hoped she’d see that happen in her lifetime. But where she was and what she was doing was close enough. It suited her and she liked knowing she was someone people shouldn’t cross if it was good for them. 

“Always make friends with the secretaries,” she told him with a laugh. “The person guarding the doors, you be nice to them and you’ll get everywhere.”

“Tip the waiters, say hi to the doormen.”

“Exactly that.”

Scout smiled, kept smiling as she kept talking, and tried not to think about what it’d been like working with Miss Pauling. After she’d knocked the shit out of him a couple of times the first couple years they’d worked together, anyway. He’d never really learned what she did in RED’s offices when she wasn’t busy with the team, but figured it was stuff he couldn’t even ask about. Stuff with the points the team had capped or the intel they’d snagged. 

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying how Petra also reminded him of his mother. Just a little. The way she talked about not being crossed and being the one in charge, managing and coordinating and being the one everyone revolved around. His mother never would have said it like Petra did. She’d always been a civilian, but what Petra was talking about was what she’d done every day of her life, just personal, for work and for her family.

No way was he telling her the details, no way was he sharing anything close to them. So over dessert, dark chocolate mousse with candied orange and ice cream that tasted like flowers and made Petra moan like he was going down on her, he told her about his times going to the QC back in Kentucky. Plenty had changed since he’d been a fresh-shaved draftee, but in the ways that counted for the story, nothing important had, and he was the one who got her to laugh with the time a company had to suffer through bright pink shirts for a week when they’d gotten the tainted detergent after its major had majorly pissed her off.

Her new job didn’t just come with a higher rank and some more responsibilities: there was a pretty decent jump in pay, and that plus her savings and new title and the good karma points she’d gotten had all worked to get her to lead him down a street in the Presidio he hadn’t been on before and unlock the back door of the north half of a house on Ligget Avenue. She didn’t turn on the kitchen lights, just closed the door behind him.

“Nice place,” he whispered. The countertops were smooth tiles and even in the dim light he could see how there wasn’t anything in the house that wouldn’t have come with it – it had a fridge and a stove, and no tables and chairs.

“Thanks,” she whispered back, and took him by the hand to lead him through the rest of the empty house, past the big front windows up the stairs, nothing on the walls or in the rooms except one. That one didn’t have anything but a big mattress with some pillows and blankets and a small suitcase off in the corner.

And Petra lying down on the mattress.

“I’ve been sleeping here. I can’t get the moving done until next weekend, I gotta do all the packing, and get new furniture, and get it all moved in and all that crap even if I’m just moving across – anyway, I’ve been sleeping in here. It –”

“It helps it feel like it’s yours.”

“Yeah,” she said as he shucked his jacket and knelt down between her spread legs. “That’s it right there.”

He leaned in and kissed her. She ran her hands over his head, through his hair. Pulled him in closer and opened up her mouth, slid her tongue along over his teeth. He shivered and kissed her back harder, started running a hand up her leg and under her dress. She moaned, rolled awy and started pulling her dress off. He moved back to get undressed and while he was pulling off his socks she got a condom out of her purse. When he got back between her legs, she ripped open the package and rolled it onto his cock. It was the first time either of them had touched his cock that night and he couldn’t stop a little whimper.

Once Scout was in her, she wrapped her legs, pumped her hips, and grabbed his face to pull him in for another long deep kiss. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as he could. When she broke the kiss it was to run her teeth over his neck and make him make some more sounds to tell him to keep going and to go harder. He did, moving one hand from her back to between her legs to rub one off and finish her off, and after she came he let himself come too.

“Ah, the bathroom’s where?”

“Mmmm.” She gestured towards it, eyes still closed, and let her hand flop down onto the mattress.

“Thanks.”

After the streetlamps through the windows, the overhead light was more than enough to make everything go white for a moment. Once Scout could see again, he found the little tube of toothpaste and the extra wrapped toothbrush in the medicine cabinet and almost went in for a shower before washing just his hands and face. He turned the light off, stood in the doorway, looked around, and turned the light back on. It wasn’t as bad coming from behind him and Petra looked like she was asleep already, curled up on her side facing away from him. He’d done a good job like he always tried to do, her sleeping already. With the light coming from the streetlamps plus the bathroom, he got a better look at what the place would look like in daytime. Nice and open and clean, not something that ever lasted for long in a new house.

He’d have to get her something to hang on the wall somewhere. 

And help her move, because he was her boyfriend and that’s what boyfriends did. But definitely get her some art to hang on a wall. Maybe a couple of pieces. It didn’t look like it’d look right to not have something hanging up somewhere. Scout knew what she liked, maybe he could surprise her with something at a party.

He wrapped the covers around himself as best he could, and the next morning she took him out for breakfast. When she finally moved house a week and a half later, she bought him lunch, him and the other half-dozen people she’d marshaled into helping her get all her stuff moved into her new digs. Nothing that fancy, not even something they’d need to unpack the forks for, just a couple of pizzas that, according to her, was the first real meal she’d eaten in her new home, and everyone agreed when she said, “Cereal and instant coffee doesn’t count.”

“I woulda went with Chinese take-out,” Scout said around a mouthful of pepperoni.

“It’s hard to get that right, though.” Valerie was the only one in the house besides Scout who didn’t live on the Presidio. “It’s gotta be good, or it’s gotta be the right kind of bad, and it’s too easy to get the bad kind of bad Chinese delivery.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Well, let’s hear it for Petra.” Jimmy raised his soda in a toast. “To the new quartermaster. Hear hear.”

“Hear,” everyone echoed, Petra blushing while she did. Scout hadn’t met most of them up until two and a half hours earlier, after he’d gotten to Petra’s old place and they all started trickling in a half-hour after he got there. He knew her old housemate but that was it, and everyone but them worked with Petra. Everyone but him had been at the official promotion shindig. Not knowing anyone who wasn’t her housemate or boyfriend, that much he knew, that at least he could talk about with everyone else. Not having too many friends outside of work, how hard it was to deal with civilians sometime – there were a lot of things he couldn’t say but this wasn’t one of them, even if he had to keep making sure he was careful about his words.

They’d gotten everything into the house in less than an hour and hadn’t bothered getting anything out of the boxes; all they’d done was get them out of Nate’s car and into the rooms the stuff was supposed to be in once the furniture arrived. There wasn’t any of it yet, no bureaus or bookcases, no dining room table, not even a bed, but she could handle a couple more nights until they started up with deliveries on Monday. And besides, she’d rather do that alone.

“Where’d you order it again?” Lynn asked, gathering up the paper plates.

“Crate and Barrel. I know, it’s nothing fancy, but it works.”

“Oh, yeah, I checked them out when I moved here,” Jimmy said. “They got good tables.”

Jenna shrugged. “I just hit up a Goodwill for my chairs.”

“You rented. When you get a place that’s really your own, you’ll want something new,” Valerie told her.

“Been there, done that,” Scout laughed.

“Moving cross-country’s a bit more than moving two miles.”

“It depends on the miles,” Nate said, and got a laugh out of everyone.

“Yeah, oh yeah,” Scout said. “Oh god, I know that like you wouldn’t believe. An’ you need some bookcases, there’s Books An’ Bookshelves out near the Haight. They got nice stuff.”

“Sorry?” Petra asked.

“Books An’ Bookshelves out near the Haight. I got a few bookcases there, they got nice bookcases. Kinda pricey but real nice, they deliver too.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“It’s one a’those little places, you know how you gotta be right there t’see it, I was just runnin’ by when I saw it – anyway, there’s places that’ll build ’em inside, right on the walls. There’s Salinger’s, it’s kinda near here, out on – ah…”

“Wait, I think I’ve read about that – Laurel Hill, right?”

“Yeah, that’s them.”

“Yeah, I definitely read about them. It’s gorgeous woodwork, but with what I get paid right now I can either hire them or eat.” 

Petra slouched down against the wall. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that much so soon.”

“Still.” Nate shrugged. “I mean, built-in bookcases. You’d have your own little library.”

“My dad had bookcases like that in his office,” Lynn said. “Really nice.”

With everything in the house, nobody needed to stick around if they had other stuff to do. It wouldn’t look good for the boyfriend to run out as soon as he could, so Scout waited a couple more hours and did what he could to let other people do the talking. He lied to Nate and said his bookcases had come with his house, told the truth to Valerie that he had some really nice books in them, promised Petra he’d help her break in her bed when she got it and waved to Jenna and then finally ran home the long way around, back by Petra’s old house and down along the beach a while before heading east back into the city.

Everything was spick and span when he came back four days later, all the furniture in the right places and everything where it was supposed to be, just what he’d expect from a quartermaster who loved her work.

“Almost everything,” he smiled, pulling the poster tubes out from his satchel. “We gotta find a nice spot for these.”

“You – you didn’t, did you? These –”

Whatever he might’ve said got lost when she kissed him hard and pretty like she hadn’t much in a while, like she was kissing him because she was happy.

“You’re welcome.”

“No, I need to thank you, I’ve never had a boyfriend get me anything like this. I know they’re prints and all, but you – thank you.”

Scout wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “A place can’t look too good if it ain’t got some art up.”

“Yeah.” Petra unrolled the Sargent and Thiebaud posters. “I’m gonna need to get these framed.”

“Get ’em all nice and pretty.”

He had to wait until his next visit to her place to find out where she put them, and he was fine with that – up until he got to the house, saw all the cars, and realized why she’d asked him to dress up nice. Parties he knew he could handle, big parties he could definitely handle if he could get a couple drinks in him or maybe leave early. The sort of parties where he met his girlfriend’s parents when the closest he’d ever really gotten was seeing Charlie’s mom from two blocks away, he didn’t know if he could handle that. But he was here, he might as well see if he could handle a big family party, parents and brothers and cousins and in-laws, where he was one of the few people that wasn’t related to Petra. Her father had the sort of handshake of a guy who sometimes worked with his hands but didn’t make a living off them. Scout did his best to return it to a hand that felt twice as big as his own. He was enjoying San Francisco as much as he could, staying in a really nice hotel on Presidio Avenue, glad to see his daughter moving up in the world.

“She tells me you’ve been around quite a while.”

“Going on eleven months, sir.”

“You’re planning on making an honest woman out of her?”

“If she’ll let me.”

“Good to hear.” He slapped Scout’s shoulder, wrapping his hand around it and steering him from the living room to the kitchen. “She also tells me you’re military.” Scout pulled his dogtags out of his shirt, let them dangle from his fingers, and got the first honest smile out of her dad he’d seen all evening. “But you don’t serve.”

“Not anymore, I don’t. I did my tours and that was it, time to get out, nothin’ for me there anymore.”

He nodded, uncapped a beer from the fridge and handed it to Scout. There were entire decades he’d dreamed about his girl’s dad handing him a beer, cold from the fridge and dark and rich, for their fingers to brush together and them to clink bottles together and follow him sip for sip. And here he was in the kitchen of his dreams, when all he wanted to do was down the bottle and get back to the rest of the party with a bit of a buzz going, to make it more bearable.

“I can respect that. Sometimes you get to the end of it – it never was for me, this is my life, my family’s life, it’s been good to us. But I can respect that.”

“Thanks.”

Petra’s oldest brother came in looking for a beer, breaking the conversation there, and while he and his dad were talking, Scout slipped out to the living room. He drained his beer and left it by the big plate of little sandwiches, scarfed down three, and took a couple more to eat in the corner over by the window. She’d put the Thiebaud landscape up by the sofa, on the opposite wall, and it looked really good there, even with her other two brothers and their wives standing in front of it. As long as none of them wanted to talk to him, he was okay.

Her mother he was actually kind of happy to talk to, when she came up to talk to him about stuff Soldier would’ve called banal – living in San Francisco, the weather that week, what was fun to do in the city and all the wizards up and down the Haight, how long she’d been married to Petra’s father. That last one took him a moment to really hear what she’d said, and even then he asked her to say it again.

“It ain’t – just that my parents weren’t married that long, no it ain’t like that my father passed away it wasn’t a divorce, god no it wasn’t a divorce, it’s just hearin’ you’ve been together that long – it’s impressive t’hear.”

“It’s nice to hear someone say that.” She swirled the wine around in her glass and looked around the room and back to Scout. “But don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t work.”

“I, yeah, I won’t – oh, ’scuse me.” Scout moved around slipping by everyone to get to Petra’s dad just as he was coming out of the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen for another beer. There was something he needed to hear, something he almost didn’t want to know but had to hear, after learning how long the guy had been married to Petra’s mother. It took a while to get to ask him, it wasn’t something Scout could ask flat-out, but a little bit here, something there, like he was talking to a girl in a bar and trying to get her to come home with him. Just finding out how long he’d served, how old he’d been when he’d finally retired after a life of good service, when he’d been born.

“May sixteenth. 1949.”

Scout kept his face as blank as he could even with his guts seizing up. Petra’s dad went on talking and Scout nodded every so often to let him think he was still listening. He followed him back into the living room and down onto the couch, where he got another beer pressed into his hand, and he wrapped all his fingers around it for something to hold onto. Other people wanted to talk to him and he didn’t turn them away, just let his mouth move and answered questions he didn’t really hear. The noise from the party and the people around were the same as the noise of the people sitting right next to him and all he wanted was to jump up and run out the door, keep running until he ran out of city and hit an ocean, then turn around and keep on running.

Two-and-a-half years younger than he was. Jesus Christ.

Scout smiled at everyone, shook hands when he said good-night, and a week later he took Petra out for coffee and said they ought to think about seeing other people. It wasn’t her fault and it wasn’t his, she was a great person and she deserved someone who’d make her happy and it wasn’t going to be him.

He wasn’t sure how happy he was supposed to be when she looked glad he’d brought it up. At least she was okay with him paying for the coffee.


	21. Chapter 21

21.

Scout was glad and all about Ben inviting him to Scott’s party, now that he was back in town and wanted to have a get-together to get back in touch with everyone all at once, but if Ben wouldn’t shut up about everything he’d have to need to deck him and leave. Ben just laughed at the threat and kept leading him down California.

“It’s been three months, you can quit sulking. I just wanna make sure I can see you having a good time tonight, and there’s some stuff I gotta warn you about.”

“I haven’t been sulking.”

“Okay, sure. Anyway, this is the last couple of things I promise, there’s going to be some, you know, some good stuff going around. It’s all legal in Amsterdam and –”

“You mean drugs?”

“Yeah, I mean drugs. You know he smokes pot, so –”

“Scott smokes pot?”

“Well, yeah. Andy too. What’d you think that smell was?”

“I…” He shrugged as Ben rang the doorbell. “I just thought that was bad patchouli.”

Ben laughed and kept laughing even when a girl that Scout didn’t know opened the door and a faint hint of that bad patchouli smell came out to meet them along with her. She hung up their jackets in a closet and led them down the hall into the living room, where almost fifteen people were sitting wherever they could – the arms of the bigger chairs, someone’s lap on the couch, a couple of people on the floor. About half of them noticed Scout and Ben, and Scott was one of them.

“Hey, great to see you two.” He pushed himself up from his chair and wrapped his arms around Scout first, then Ben, not noticing or caring that Scout froze up and didn’t return the hug the way Ben did. “So you guys want anything? We got beer, Katie’s making rum and cokes and screwdrivers, so there’s plain coke and orange juice, we’re gonna open up the good stuff soon –”

“Just orange juice,” Scout said.

“The good stuff?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, I was thinking E tonight, we’ve got some amps, some skunk weed – everything came through fine, wrapped it up and stuffed it in my socks, came right through. Didn’t even have to declare anything.” He slapped Scout on the shoulder. “You wanted OJ, right? Katie! One virgin screwdriver!” A woman yelled back something from the kitchen Scout couldn’t catch. “You know everyone? Everyone, you know these guys? Okay, intro’s over, gimme a minute and I’ll get the stuff, just a minute.” Scott disappeared down the hallway, Ben took a seat on the free arm of the couch, and Scout leaned against an empty spot on the wall.

It was a good room for a party to be in, just big enough for everyone to get their own spot, lamps instead of overhead lights to keep things close, no music so everyone could talk better. Scout didn’t know everyone, but pretty close. He knew that Andy and the other guy talking to Ben were both Scott’s housemates, no wonder nobody was making a fuss. There was Katie without his OJ and her girlfriend Mary, Tom and Alice with a couple he didn’t recognize, some more people he was sure he’d know if they told him he did, everyone talking to each other and smiling, and then Scott was back, handing everyone small white pills from a silver tin. And everyone was still talking and smiling, taking their pill. Ben swallowed his down with some of Dave’s beer, Alice had hers with a sip of rum and coke and Tom took his the same way. Scout looked down at the pill in his hand, white and round with a Playboy bunny stamped onto it, then tipped his head back and swallowed it dry. 

When he opened his eyes and looked around the little dim room, everything was going the same. Mary had Katie sitting on the floor between her legs and was braiding her hair, one guy handing off drinks to two women, normal party stuff. There wasn’t anything happening in his head. He really wanted to be somewhere else but as long as he was here he might as well stay until it was time to go. And he knew there ought to be something going on by now, maybe he’d gotten a bad pill, maybe he just needed a drink. He pushed off the wall and started towards what he thought was the kitchen but got stopped halfway by one of the girls he didn’t know, who was just hanging out in the hallway drinking a screwdriver.

“You want mine? They don’t do much for me.”

“Oh, sure.” The second went down easier than the first, and there still wasn’t anything. She slid past him to get back to the party. Scout turned around and tried to follow her and then went back to head to the kitchen. He didn’t get far before he knocked up against someone’s leg, and spun around to land on his heel. The guy laughed at him from the floor, a glass of something in his hand and two more empties next to him.

“Hey.” Scout crouched down to listen to him closer. “Hey, you ever – you think…I think I’m good, you wanna…” He rolled his head around, smiling at Scout. “Do me a favor an’ take mine?” Before Scout had a chance to answer, the guy let out a low groan and held out his free hand, closed in a fist. Scout pulled the fingers back and took the pill, popping it into his mouth as he went to get back to the party. More people were on the chairs and Ben had slid down to the couch to make everyone squished together, the girl who’d given him her pill was sitting where Ben had been, and nobody was at his spot. He got in just as Ben roped an arm around the girl’s waist and pulled her into his lap, and Scout leaned back against the wall to watch them laugh and bump noses together. After a few minutes Scott came by.

“How’s it going?”

“Not bad, not bad, it beats sittin’ at home doin’ nothing. Hey, those pills, how many were we supposed t’take?”

“Just one. I think the guy said two, maybe, if you really know what you’re doin’. You feelin’ it yet?”

“Not yet.” Scout ran a hand through his hair, and he definitely needed to get a haircut soon. “An’ we ain’t supposed t’take more than that?”

“I don’t think so. It’s the good stuff, you wouldn’t need more than one.” 

“I mean, I took three, an’ I don’t think there’s anythin’ happenin’ yet, an’ I was just makin’ sure –”

“Three? He said two, I don’t know what – look, if you’re worried, it’s fine. Don’t panic, you’ll be fine. Get some water, sit down and wait it out.”

“Right. An’ which way’s the bathroom again?”

“That way.”

“Thanks.” This time he made it there, stepping over the guy who’d slumped down and started sleeping, closed the door and shut his eyes before turning on the lights. The lights in the bathroom were so much brighter than anything else in the house, even out in the hallway. They shot right through his lids and for just a moment it reminded him of waking up in respawn, just a little, just the waking up part. Not the dying to get there part. That part wasn’t ever fun – sometimes good to get it over with, but never fun. The waking up part wasn’t fun either, but it was always nice. Real good, too. 

After he took a drink, took a piss, and washed his hands, he stopped to look at himself in the mirror. He leaned in to get a better look at his teeth – over a year with them looking like this and he still wasn’t used to it. No more braces, no more buck teeth, no more messy teeth at all, all of them good and clean and straight, just like in the movies. He ran his tongue over them, smiled, and shut the lights off before he opened the door, to get a moment of nothing but dark.

Andy was waiting for him out in the hall, taking him by the arm as soon as he opened the door. “Hey, you feeling all right? You need some sleep? You can take Dave’s bed, I’ll give him mine.”

“No, no, I’m good, just kinda gettin’ t’want somethin’ t’drink. Kitchen’s thataway?”

“You’re sure you’re fine?” He didn’t look like he believed Scout but still dropped his hand.

“Totally sure, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve – totally sure, an’ you know, y’know, back in my day, we never woulda done anythin’ like this.”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, nobody but nobody would be handin’ out drugs like this, not some member of the American armed forces, no soldier ever would’ve had a party like this, not back then.” He smiled at Andy, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You really smoke pot?”

“Sometimes,” he whispered back.

“Boy. Nobody would’ve done that neither. Why’s it you do it?”

“I don’t do it much. But there’s sometimes some nights when nightmares get bad, or when I know I won’t get any sleep and I just can’t deal with it, and that’s when I’ll order a pizza and light up a blunt. That’s it.”

Scout’s jaw fell open. “You get nightmares too?”

“Don’t tell.”

“I won’t.” He straightened up, took two steps towards the kitchen, then changed course and went to sit down on the arm of one of the chairs, right next to one of the guys he didn’t know. He was talking about baseball to another guy Scout didn’t know. It felt good to listen to them, good that this was something that’d stayed the same, and it felt great to talk to people that listened to him. And even they knew the DH rule was bullshit, total bullshit, it needed to get off the books as soon as possible and yesterday would be too soon.

“You really know your baseball,” the second guy said.

“Oh, you bet I do, woulda gone all the way t’the majors if I hadn’t gotten tapped right outta the army – hey, ever use a baseball bat t’cave some guy’s skull in?”

“What? Uh, no?”

“Man, it’s great, real great, you gotta – well, no, you don’t gotta, you probably shouldn’t if there ain’t a good reason for it. But if you got one, you got a real good reason, you gotta get up close, real close, an’ you gotta get it down hard an’ fast.” Scout jumped up from the couch to demonstrate for them, because the looks on their faces told him they didn’t know anything about what he was talking about – their mouths were wide open and their eyes were on him, just on him, and he felt like he was floating he was so happy to be able to share all this. They didn’t know what he was talking about and he knew he had to get the right words to tell them about everything when they didn’t know anything, they didn’t know anything about the way his hands went stinging numb when his bat hit home, or the way the impact sounded different all over the bodies, the way his heart jumped and everything smelled better during the fighting and not after or before, it was all important stuff he’d done then and it was important to get them to know it now. He’d known exactly what he’d had to do way back when, and he finally knew exactly what he had to do right now. Their eyes were on him and he had to keep them looking his way, to make sure they’d understand. “An’ it don’t sound like a thing from the movies, either, the skull’s pretty tough, you gotta keep hittin’ it. Make sure they ain’t getting’ up.”

“Hang on, you killed people?” Ben pushed the girl over to the armrest to get up and join the two guys, grabbing onto the back of the chair to keep his feet under him. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I ain’t supposed t’say, but yeah, that was a big part of the day’s work, back when I was doin’ that. An’ that’s ’bout all I can say, sorry, but I can’t say a whole lot more’n that, but yeah, killin’ people. I had t’do some of that.”

“Really?” The first guy asked. “That’s what you had for your job?”

“Andy’s killed people. Dave’s killed people,” Ben said.

“Yeah, but with guns, not like, not like with a baseball bat.”

“Lemme tell ya, it takes a lotta goddamn skill t’kill someone with a bat. You gotta get up in close, it ain’t like a pistol or a flamethrower even, whoa, sorry, wasn’t supposed t’say that –”

“What the hell were you?” Ben asked. “Were you in the marines?”

“I – ah, special forces, an’ that’s all, jus’ fill in the blanks, special forces.”

“No shit!” Katie called out from across the room. “You do that in special forces? Not just in the movies?”

“I’m tellin’ ya, no shit!”

“It depends –” Andy started.

Scout cut him off, “When you got nothin’ else, when your team’s down t’just you against everyone left, you gotta use just whatever it is you got, an’ if you know what works, you’re gonna stick with it.” He crossed the room to stand by Katie, lean against her chair. “Maybe it ain’t so flashy as some handguns or super-impressive like some miniguns or whoever’s got whatever, but you want something that’s gonna get the job freakin’ done an’ I mean done, an’ for me, I ain’t never found anythin’ quite so good as a baseball bat. Well, sure, nice shotguns an’ all, but I mean up close an’ personal, you gotta get like – see how far I am from you here, now?” He took a step back, waved his arms in the air. “You can’t get much farther’n this, you wanna kill someone with a bat.” She pulled back in her chair and Scout smiled, spun on his heel to walk back to the couch. The girl was in Ben’s old seat, and Scout took her spot on the armrest. “Hey, Andy, you ever kill anyone up close?”

“Once.”

“That all? Dave? What about you?”

“Not up close.”

“Ah, that ain’t too bad, I know some guys, used t’know some guys, an’ they’d never kill up close if they didn’t have to, an’ – hey, Scott?”

“I never –”

“Kitchen’s what way again?”

“Oh, uh, that way?”

“Thanks.” He jumped up and made it three steps before stopping and heading back to Ben. “Hey, thanks t’you too, this is a great party, I can’t believe I didn’t wanna come, I mean it man, thanks so much for draggin’ my sorry ass out here tonight.”

“You’re wecome. It’s fine, I’m glad you’re here too, you can relax.”

“Oh I am so not relaxin’ yet, I am feelin’ too good t’relax, man, I ain’t felt this good in way too long, Scott, you gonna do this again sometime?” He felt warm all over, and the room was still dim and loud but it was a good dim and loud, it was a dim and loud he was in instead of just watching – it felt like he’d chugged a six-pack of Bonk! soda. Except that this wasn’t wearing off as fast as that used to, and he couldn’t even find Bonk! anymore, he had half a case sitting in his garage that’d been there for almost two years and wasn’t getting touched, but maybe he ought to crack a can open tomorrow and go out for a run for old time’s sake. Scout licked his lips, remembering the spicy taste, and then because he really was thirsty. He asked and a girl he didn’t know handed him a fresh bottle of beer that he swallowed as fast as he could so he could get back to talking. Everyone was listening to him. He’d better fucking talk.

Everyone’s eyes were on him, everyone’s, even the guy from the hallway who’d managed to pull himself together enough to stumble over to sit at Scout’s old spot on the wall, and it was such a beautiful feeling. Nobody’s eyes were ever on him anymore, not everyone’s eyes, not since the war, and it felt so damn beautiful to have it again. Scout wasn’t going to let it end any earlier than it was supposed to, whenever that was going to be, and he told everyone everything he could manage without breaking contract, about the sort of work he did fighting against miniguns and rocket launchers and freaking homemade-from-deer-sinew bows and arrows, about eating fresh deer and wild berries when they were up in the mountains and rabbits out in the deserts, about fighting for days and days and what it felt like to have to keep on going without knowing when the end would come and when you were going to die. Not if you might die, but when, because until it was over death was going to happen, it was a goddamn guarantee, you knew that when you signed up and just tried to not let it happen.

“Yeah! Yeah that’s it, that’s it! I can’t tell people that, but yes!” Dave shouted from the corner. “When you’re gonna die, not if, when!”

“It’s always when. Like when it’s your chance at-bat, it’s – you know, it was a lot like, oh shit, that goddamn fat bald bastard would so tear me a new one makin’ everything baseball all the time but it was, I’m sayin’ it was. Not everything but this fuckin’ was.”

“What was?” Mary asked.

“Bein’ together on the team, it was, I mean – it was you, an’ it was everyone, an’ when it’s you up there it’s all on you, just you, but you’re representin’ the team an’ you, mostly you. An’ you’re still part of the team even when it’s just you up there, out there, you’re fightin’ for yourself an’ everyone at the same time, you ain’t got that anywhere else, not footie, not rugby, nothin’, just baseball an’ fightin’ on a team.”

Ben laughed. “You must’ve had a hell of a job.”

“I had a goddamn hell of a job! I had the best job in the world, like you wouldn’t even believe, trust me, you wouldn’t believe it!” He spun around again, felt the world keep spinning inside his head. “We had it together, all nine of us, god, what we did, the things – when we were out there, we were immortal when we were out there, we were freakin’ dancin’ with eternity, we were – I –”

He stopped spinning to look Scott in the eye. “I’m real sorry about this.”

Then he dropped to his knees, threw up, and passed out.

When he woke up, it was to the worst fucking hangover he’d had since that one mission at Hydro that lasted seven weeks – getting his head split open by a shovel would barely hurt as much as it hurt now. He didn’t open his eyes, just squeezed them shut, curled up and wrapped his arms around his legs, and let out a low moan to try to get the pounding in his head out. Even with his eyes closed the room was too bright, there was the smell of alcohol and puke and some other stuff he didn’t even want to try to think about. He didn’t even have respawn to get him out of it this time.

Didn’t stop him from wishing he had his pistol, or for someone else to shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Scout rolled over onto his back, stretched out his legs – so he was on the couch, that’s where he was – and rubbed his palms against his eyes, moaned again, wondered how he’d ended up on the couch when he couldn’t remember most of the last night.

“Hey,” Andy said.

Scout groaned back.

“You all right?”

“Can’t you just shoot me please?”

“Here.” Something cold and slick bumped against his arm and he managed to push himself up into a sitting position, grope around in the air, and have it pressed into his hand. It was a glass full of orange juice and when he tipped it back to drink it down, it felt like years since he’d had any orange juice.

When he was done, he felt better enough to open his eyes to the bright August morning in Scott’s living room. The place didn’t look too bad and the smell wasn’t great but he knew they could clean that out later. His head was still pounding, but not where being killed by a shovel would be an improvement. A headshot, maybe, but not a shovel.

“You all right?” Andy asked again.

“I’m – I’m a little better, yeah. What’s it you’re doin’ here? Where’s everyone else?”

“They went home or went out for breakfast. You were still sleeping so I said I’d stay and keep an eye on you.”

“Thanks.”

Andy nodded. “You think you can keep food down?”

“I – ah – not now. In a bit, yeah, but now – can I just get some more juice?”

“Sure.” He was back with a refill Scout downed the moment he got it so he could press the bottom of the cold, empty glass against his eyes, one after another, to get them to feel better. It didn’t work, but it still felt nice.

“There any coffee?”

“I got a pot going now. It’ll be done in a bit.”

“Great.” He handed the glass back and leaned against the cushions. “Just what happened last night? Did somebody puke in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Must’ve been a hell of a party. I mean, I don’t remember, I – what’d I do last night?”

Andy crossed his arms. “What do you remember?”

“I was…I remember gettin’ here, I was standin’ over there for a while, I took one a’the pills Scott was giving out…I went to the bathroom, and…that’s it, I mean, I must’ve come back in here t’get on the couch, but I don’t remember that part.”

“Yeah, you were – you talked a lot and then fell asleep, so we decided you ought to get the couch.”

“I did? Aw, Jesus, I’m sorry, I get like that sometimes – I didn’t say anythin’ too, too weird, did I?” Andy shook his head. “Oh, phew, I was worried for a minute there.”


	22. Chapter 22

22.

A few months later, he thought about inviting a few of the guys out for something for his birthday, maybe just go out drinking, and almost got close to asking them. Scout made the day as normal as he could and got on with his life: writing cards to his old teammates talking about the weather or paintings in a museum or running past marathons, cooking cioppino for dinner, and a couple weeks later, he managed to get another woman in bed with him. She was good, he was better, and he knew she’d come home with him mostly because most guys wouldn’t pick up single mothers as old as she was. And she wasn’t even as old as he was.

When they were done and she was sleeping, he stayed on in the bathroom, dawdling after putting his retainers on, inspecting himself in the mirrors and leaning in as close as he could get. Nothing about his face looked different from yesterday, but there were some habits from the war he hadn’t learned to lose. Now that things were changing every day, it seemed important to keep going with it – changing every day, and staying changed.

The long, thin scar across his face that Sniper surprised everyone with was just the first big one they all noticed – the first one they all noticed. They’d all thought respawn kept everything from happening to them and Miss Pauling had explained how the whole thing worked. How respawn always put them back right to where they’d been, nothing big ever stuck, how it took hundreds and hundreds of respawns for anything to catch and when it did it wasn’t ever that big. Scout hadn’t kept track but he knew it’d been at least hundreds for him, and that night he’d stripped down and checked every inch of skin he could see in case it had something new on it. He’d already gotten a decent collection, from the polio shot on his arm to the deep scrape on his leg – plenty of scars from all the different things people got scars from out in the world away from the war – and that night he couldn’t find anything new, but by now he had a really damn good collection.

There were the little knife wounds that’d come from the BLU Spy, up and down his spine, and a bigger one by his left shoulder blade from when he’d realized it wasn’t Pyro behind him and dodged just enough not get killed right away. He’d burned to death plenty of times and all he had to show for them was a little patch of scar tissue about the size of his palm on his left leg, spreading little fingers outwards like it knew how big it was supposed to be and wanted to keep going. A long, thin line cut across his upper right arm just below the shoulder, thanks to the BLU Medic’s bonesaw – Scout had managed to finish him off, but the BLU Demo took him out maybe five minutes later and the bonesaw’s cut was the thing that got stuck. One time after he’d run into minigun fire, he’d just come back with a tiny nick by his left eye, a scar he almost didn’t find. He had an Ithaca 37 shotgun’s exit wound on his back, but nothing for it on the front. Two entrance wounds on his front – one from a French revolver and the other from a scoped rifle – just below his collarbone, the ones he’d showed off to the guys to prove he’d had worse days, and nothing on his back for either one of them.

And on his right fingertip there was a tiny little scar, just a small patch of smooth skin where the respawn system tagged him at the start of every mission, and he didn’t know if it was from just one time or from the same thing happening hundreds and hundreds of times, over and over again.

There were all those and a few more besides, twelve stitches on his scalp and a cut on the inside of his lip when he’d gotten pushed off the road and fell off a cliff in the Presidio.

Scout took one last good, close look at his face, turned off the lights, and went to bed. The next morning he made the woman coffee and oatmeal before she left, and didn’t bother to get her name again since he wouldn’t need to remember it. It wasn’t like he was going to tell anyone about her – it’d been fun and all and he’d made sure she’d had a good time, but that was all there’d been. She wasn’t anything he thought he ought to share.

Plans to demilitarize the Presidio, real plans and not just rumors over beers or at the shooting range, that he had to share, had to storm back into the house after a ten-hour run and call Engineer in the middle of the night yelling for a half-hour about the bullshit of it without caring that he’d woken Dylan. All the guys knew about it before he did, and Petra knew before they did, and they all went out for drinks when the news came down and it was time to mourn. Nobody knew how much of it would stay military and how much would go to the city or get made into parks, but everyone knew it was time to start packing up, finding a new city to live in. Everyone besides Scout.

Other changes in the city, the plans to break up the De Young and redo it, move all the Asian stuff right to the middle of downtown and make it its own museum, that he wrote to Spy to tell him about in case he came to San Francisco. He knew how much Spy liked that stuff, had sent him a print of a Vietnamese scroll for Christmas the year before that’d had a bunch of symbols he’d remembered seeing on Spy’s chest, and gotten a huge box of French chocolates in return instead of just a little polite card.

He called Heavy and asked to talk to Medic to tell him about the Telegraph Hill parrots, just to hear their voices for the first time in ages and get to say it was the rates to Finland that meant he couldn’t keep talking for more than a while, packed up a box of baby toys and clothes for Demo’s daughter when her birthday came around. It wasn’t like there wasn’t anything happening. There just wasn’t anything about himself worth sharing, nothing happening to him.

One day in September, he went out for a run when it was still dark, except when he stopped and looked around it was afternoon and he was downtown, right near where the new art museum was going to be. There wasn’t even a building, just a space and a lot of signs. It wouldn’t get moved in until the whole thing was ready and there was no knowing when that’d be. He stared for a while, then turned around and started walking. It was one of those bright days in early fall, when there were still plenty of green leaves on all the trees and the sky was the sharpest shade of blue there ever could be. All the sycamores along the promenade still had their leaves on, and plenty of people were walking around, sitting on the benches and lying on the lawns. He tried not to pay attention to any of it. It’d been way too long, too many years. Scout didn’t even want that much, just wanted something simple, just wanted to talk to someone and know they’d listen. Wanted to not have to keep checking himself, talk and laugh like everyone else was doing without thinking about it, just go ahead and laugh, hear someone call him by his name, it’d been ages since he’d heard anyone call him –

“Scout?”


	23. Chapter 23

23.

It’d been seven years since the end of the war.

“Fuck.”

And there was no way there would ever be enough time for him to forget her voice.

“Fuck! Fuck! Oh my god oh god just fuck me, Scout, just fuck! Fuck, it’s good to see you, I didn’t think I’d – Jesus, I never – come on and give me a goddamn hug.”

“It’s good t’see you too, Pyro.” She had her arms wrapped around him tight and he didn’t loosen his grip around her until her arms fell back a bit. He took a step back and wiped his eyes to take a good look at her, at the face he hadn’t seen since the war, at a face that wasn’t exactly the one he remembered, that now had a long braid starting at the top of her head and pulling in all her hair. “You…you grew you hair out.”

She nodded and looked at his mouth. “You got your teeth fixed.”

“Yeah, yeah I did, you like ’em?”

“Yeah, I think I do. Fuck, it’s good to see you,” Pyro said, laughing.

“I – what the hell are you doin’ in San Francisco?”

“Being a tourist. What are you doing here?”

“I live here, that’s what I’m doin’!”

“No. No! Come on, you’re shitting me.” He smirked and shook his head. “You’re not shitting me. Damn. You know, I honestly wouldn’t have thought you’d end up here, I figured you’d stayed in Boston.”

“I did for a while, then figured, I got the money, why not travel, why not go somewhere else. So I came here.”

“Just like that?”

“Not just like that, but y’know, close enough. An’ – come on, Pyro, where the fuck’ve you been?”

“Traveling,” she smiled. “Being a tourist.”

“So wait, hold on, you’re stayin’ in a hotel? Oh, no, no, we ain’t gonna keep that up – no friend of mine’s stayin’ in a hotel when I got room at my place for ’em.”

“It’s fine, you don’t –”

“Like hell I don’t, c’mon, I don’t care where you’re stayin’, there ain’t no way I can let you sleep in some hotel when I know you could be sleepin’ at my house.” Pyro blinked, opened her mouth to say something, and Scout jumped in, “Don’t worry, all the bedroom doors got locks on ’em.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “Okay, then.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “So you’re stayin’ where?”

It turned out she was staying at one of the nicest hotels in the city, the one down at the end of Market Street, with a room overlooking the water and a good view of the Bay Bridge through the buildings and part of the city, too. He ducked into the bathroom while she started packing and the soap the place gave her – real soap, wrapped in paper with French on it – smelled nice enough he shrugged and pocketed a couple of bars to take home with him.

“So you – uh.” Pyro was just closing up a suitcase when he got out of the bathroom, a large backpack already zipped up and resting on the bed. “Uh, is that all you got?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged on the backpack and hefted up the suitcase. “You ready to go?”

“All you got’s those two bags?”

“Yes. Fuck, Scout, c’mon, you ready or not?”

“Sorry, yeah.” He moved to pick up the suitcase and she pushed past him to open the door, following him out of the room.

“So where is your place, exactly?” The elevator doors closed with a ding and they started riding down.

“Cole Valley, y’know, out by Ashbury Heights. We could take a taxi, a bus, I think there’s maybe one of the old streetcars could take us pretty close.” 

They ended up walking the four miles. Nearly unbelievably slow at almost an hour to get there when if he was running alone he’d make it in maybe twenty minutes. The only part he really minded about it was that Pyro never let him take her suitcase or backpack. He didn’t even mind how stiff his legs felt from just walking; he liked talking to Pyro too much to care. The whole way, he pointed out places he’d been to or things she ought to notice, told her about the stuff he’d read about the city and the places they were walking past – how Sutro Tower looked like a sailing ship or a spaceship depending on how the fog came in – and she smiled and listened and let him talk.

When they got to his house, she looked around and turned to him with a huge smile. “Nice place.”

“Hey, thanks.” Once they were in the entry room, she finally let him take her suitcase. “Garage’s that way, it’s where the guns are, kitchen’s through here, bathroom’s there, that one’s mine, and this one’s yours.” He’d made sure to get nice stuff for the spare bedroom – maybe not as nice as the stuff in his, but still good enough to make any guest happy if he’d ever end up having one over for the night who wouldn’t be sharing his own bed. It had a dresser, a desk and chair, all the stuff a bedroom should have. Pyro tossed her backpack onto the desk and looked around the room, twisted the blinds open and shut, then pulled them up to let some light into the room.

“Thank you. Just, for all this.”

“Glad y’like it. An’ you’re welcome, but I mean – like I said, ain’t no way I’d let a friend stay in some hotel when she could be stayin’ with me. Even when it’s a hotel nice as that one.” She turned to look back out the window and he rocked back and forth on his heels. “So – so anyway, I was gonna – I was just gonna let you settle in, an’ if you get any questions, you can come an’ ask me, I’ll be, you can just come find me, okay?”

“Sure.” He backed up and she shut and locked the door behind him. She stayed there for almost an hour with him passing the time reading the new Saxton Hale biography he’d gotten from the library – it’d been worth going on a waiting list for, especially the bit about The Who and their trebuchets at Woodstock and the part at the end about the ‘crazed gunman’ assassination theory – and he was about to ask her how she was, but she ducked into the bathroom before he could say anything.

After she got out, though, she didn’t go back to her room, but instead joined him in the living room, sitting down in one of the armchairs across from the couch. “So is there anything I gotta know about?”

“Like what?”

“Like – I don’t know, do I need to pay for the toilet paper, should I get my own mini-fridge or anything like that, do I –”

“Don’t worry about the toilet paper, jus’ tell me when we’re runnin’ low an’ I’ll get some more, you don’t need your own fridge, just write your name on your stuff an’ I can get you some containers if you need any. You don’t need t’pay me rent or anythin’, jus’ don’t go messin’ anything up, don’t go eatin’ my food or burnin’ the place down, we got fireplaces for that.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “There’s one downstairs too.”

“Do they work?”

“Yeah, I think so – I ain’t ever used ’em, but we can check tomorrow. Oh, an’ what d’you want for dinner? I was gonna cook somethin’, but you wanna order in, we could if you want.”

She slouched in the chair, throwing one leg over the armrest. “You’re gonna cook?”

“You don’t think I can?”

“I think I’d like to see you try.”

“Okay then.” He smirked right back at her. “Home cookin’ it is.”

All he’d planned on making was some pasta with a tomato sauce, but the look on her face had him running out to the store to get something fresher than canned tomatoes – he knew it was always good to have canned tomatoes in the pantry just in case – they weren’t going to cut it for wiping that smirk off her face. Fresh fennel might, maybe something with capers, and it took almost an hour and a half longer to make dinner than it usually did. And the look on her face when she took a bite of the chicken was worth it.

“Fuck.”

“Glad y’like it.”

“No, I mean – this is really fucking good.” Pyro cut off another piece and wiped it through the sauce before chewing slowly with her eyes closed. “And you just made this?”

Scout fought to keep from breaking into a grin and took a sip of water to keep his mouth under control. “Yeah. This was all me, right here. You’re welcome, too.”

“I know, and I –” She shrugged, and looked down at what was left on her plate. “I guess seven years is enough time for all this.”

“Maybe, y’think? I mean, I got no idea what you’ve been up to, not besides bein’ a tourist, an’ – hey, when you saw me, how’d you know it was me?” 

“What?”

“I mean, when you saw me, an’ you wanted me t’turn around –”

“Oh. Well, you just…I thought it was you, and if it wasn’t you wouldn’t have turned around, but if it was you would’ve. And you did.”

“Yeah, an’ what made you think it was me?”

“I guess just the way you moved. You were just – you were really fucking going for it,” she jabbed her hand out to show him. “Nobody else was moving like that. It was how you always used to move, the whole goddamn full steam ahead thing, how when you were going for something you just fucking went for it. And when I got closer, you looked enough like you I thought maybe it was, so I thought I’d check it out.” 

“An’ you did.”

“And then you made me dinner and gave me a place to sleep.”

“No, first I gave you a place t’sleep an’ then I made you dinner.”

“Right,” she laughed. “That’s how it went.”

“Hell yeah it did! No, don’t get up, I’ll get it, you want ice cream, coffee?”

“I’m good. I’ll just shower and get to bed a little early.”

“No sweat. There’s towels in the hall closet.”

“Thanks.”

Scout was back reading on the couch when Pyro came out of the shower in a t-shirt and boxers, her hair still in a braid that started at the top of her head, and he held his breath to make sure he could hear her lock her door. He almost locked his, then left it open like he always did. Even if there was someone else in the house tonight who wasn’t in the same room as him. But it wasn’t like when he’d needed some privacy from his brothers or the rest of the team – this was his place, all his, and even with Pyro in her own room this was still all his home.

He rolled over and stared at the wall she was sleeping on the other side of, like how they’d sometimes settled in the rooms on bases a few times – it was a little like that, not enough to really fool him, but enough to remind him, and just the reminder was plenty. It was still his house.

And it felt good to know he was sharing it.

She was already up and dressed, her hair back in the braid, when he was still in his pajamas and busy frying up a couple of eggs while the coffee boiled. He cooked up a couple more for her and let her get her own coffee knowing he didn’t even need to offer.

“So what’ve you got goin’ on today?” He asked before slurping some yolk off his fork.

“Not a whole lot. I’ve just been going around and seeing some of the big sights – yeah, it’s the goddamn tourist thing, but they’re still fun. I thought today I’d maybe just take a walk out to the ocean and back, it looks pretty nice for it.”

“Yeah, it does. I was just gonna head out for a run for a while, maybe hit up the library again.”

“So how’s this going to work?”

“What, how’s what gonna work?”

“Me staying here. Until you fucking showed up yesterday I didn’t think I’d spend more than a couple of weeks here, maybe a month tops, and that was me in a hotel. How’s this gonna work out with me staying here? Do I need to be out of here by the thirtieth or something?”

“Jesus, Pyro, no. You can stay long as you want.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “Thanks.”

“Look, you can leave when you want, whenever you want. But as long as you’re stayin’ in the city, I want you t’be stayin’ with me. You got that?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“An’ you’ll probably need a key to the place. If I’m out somewhere an’ you wanna get back in, or you’re out an’ I wanna get back in, I got an extra hidden in the garage but I’ll get you your own, I’ll get it done today. When were you gonna get back here? Ah, long as I get back first or you don’t mind waitin’ a while, it don’t matter.”

“You don’t need to worry. I’ll just try to get back before it gets dark.”

Scout laughed around his coffee. “Jeez, where’ve you been you gotta worry about goin’ out after dark? Maybe on Halloween or somethin’ like that, an’ okay the Tenderloin or Hunter’s Point maybe, but don’t you got any of your old stuff around?” She shook her head and he gaped. “No axes? You ain’t even got one of those flare guns?” 

“After the whole thing – after I got back from the severance meeting, I just packed up everything and stuffed all my shit in a storage locker.”

“What? You ain’t been worried about it?”

“Nah.” She took another long drink of her coffee, finishing it off. “It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I paid the guy fifty thousand dollars to make sure.”

“Fifty K’ll do it. Anwway, you definitely, you don’t gotta worry. But if you think you do, you wanna borrow one of the pistols?”

Pyro laughed while she got up to put her dishes in the sink. “I’ll let you know.”

In the end she didn’t and was fine with waiting around a while before he got back with the key; when Scout got back the day after that, after it’d gotten dark, she was reading in the living room, curled up in one of the chairs instead of slouching over it. Over some flounder caught fresh that morning that he cooked with the rest of the capers in the jar, they talked about what she’d been reading: one of the art books he’d added to his mom’s collection, something he’d gotten at the MOMA a couple years back. She hadn’t been there yet and he hadn’t gone since he’d gotten the book, so he made her promise to keep the next day free so he could take her.

“It ain’t like one of those stupid tourist things. Everyone goes, I mean everyone, it’s really great – I don’t know what they got now but that’s kinda nice, you get surprised by it.”

“Hey, sometimes people do the fucking stupid tourist things because they’re actually a good time. Back in – I mean, things like the zoo, if it’s a good zoo, everyone fucking goes. Art museums, everyone goes. Alcatraz, everyone goes.”

“I ain’t been t’Alcatraz yet.”

“Really? You’ve been here seven years, right?”

“Yeah, an’ I ain’t leavin’. If I was, I’d have t’get it in, make sure I see it before I go, but y’know, I live here, it ain’t goin’ nowhere either.”

Scout knew he wasn’t going anywhere, but there were times he forgot not everyone else was either, not until he got a reminder like he got the next morning when the doorbell rang as he was pouring the coffee and he realized he’d forgotten that two weeks ago he’d agreed to help Ben and Mike move until they showed up in his living room.

“I’m sorry, an’ yeah, I can still make it.” He handed each of them a fresh mug, black with two sugars for Ben and milk and no sugar for Mike. “It’s been busy here, I’d thought I’d –”

“Hey, we’re getting low on – oh.” The two of them turned to look at Pyro, and suddenly something went over their faces and froze there. Scout looked at Pyro, who was just watching the three of them, then looked back at Mike and Ben, then did a double-take at their faces and realized just what they were looking at.

He moved to stand next to Pyro. “Hey, Mike, Ben, this is…uh…”

“Lin. Lin Bei Fong. Nice to meet you.” She smiled bigger and faker than he’d ever seen her, took two steps forward, and thrust out her hand. They shook it, one after another, and Scout watched their faces – watched them while they shook the hand of a short, pudgy Chinese woman with burn scars over half her face, up and down her neck, on her hands where they had to touch her. Ben shoved his hand down into his pocket as soon as she let go, and Mike went and wrapped his around the coffee mug he’d been holding. Pyro kept smiling as she jerked a thumb towards Scout. “You two know this fucker how?”

“We were at the, uh, we were out shooting when he came by,” Ben said. “At the Presidio’s shooting range. Back when it had one.” She nodded. “He, ah – he’s helping us move today, we’ve got the van parked outside. We have to return it by tomorrow night so we’d better get moving.”

“Right.” She nodded. “So the museum’s off?”

“Look, I ain’t blowin’ you off, I just agreed two weeks ago – tomorrow work for you?”

“Yeah, tomorrow’s fine. I’ll just walk around a while, get lunch off a truck. No big deal. But we’re low on toilet paper, so you wanna pick some up while you’re out or should I?”

“I’ll get it.”

“Fuckin’-A. Nice meeting you two.” She waved before flipping up the hood on her sweatshirt and disappearing out the front door. Ben watched her go and Mike stared into his coffee.

“So you know her from where?” Mike asked after a moment of silence.

“We used to work together.”

“Really?”

“No kiddin’.”

“All that super-classified special forces stuff you never tell us about, she worked with you on those?”

“Every single mission.”

Ben whistled. “Hell of a job you must’ve had.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”


	24. Chapter 24

24.

The next day, they were staring at a Matisse painting when he finally got up the nerve to ask. “Lin’s not your name, is it?”

“No.”

“Whose is it, then?”

She glanced over at him, then turned her head to look him right in the eye. After a moment, she took a deep breath. “Just someone I met a while back. A woman. Someone I met in China.”

“Oh.” He looked back at Matisse’s wife, painted up like a bouquet at a florist’s with all the colors to match. One good last long look at the faraway gaze in her eyes before they moved on to another painting in another room. “You’ve been t’China?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? When’d you go?”

“Just after the war ended.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I packed up all my shit, gave the super my lease, and – okay, I didn’t go right straight to China, but it only took me a couple months to get there.”

“So you were there for how long?”

“Three, maybe three and a half years.”

“China.”

“Yeah.”

She’d gone back to looking at the art instead of him, no matter what he asked or how she answered. So he went back to talking about what was hanging on the walls or set up on tables in the middle of a room. They went through the permanent collections, the exhibits of stuff that was so new it wasn’t even in any books in the gift shop, and ended up buying coffee someplace out by Potrero Hill for less than half what they were charging in the café. Pyro said she’d be happy sitting down in the sun by a window for a while, no matter how much they were paying for what they were drinking.

“So three an’ a half years,” he said when they finally sat down at a free table. She nodded, pulling her sweatshirt off and letting it fall over the back of the chair as Scout went on. “An’ you didn’t think t’call or write anyone while you were there, you just up and left for someplace halfway around the world once the war was over.” At least she had the courtesy to look away like she might be a little embarrassed or ashamed. “You knew where I was livin’ in Boston, you knew where Engie was, it wasn’t like you couldn’t have –”

“Jesus, you think I don’t know? Fine. I’m sorry I was so fucking out of my mind because the war had just ended and I had no fucking idea what the fuck I was going to do I didn’t even think – I mean, I knew, there wasn’t a single fucking day I never thought about the rest of you guys, and…fuck. After a while it got to be too much, even if I did pick up the phone and call. If there was a fucking phone for fifty miles around which, you know, sometimes there wasn’t, and even if there was, even if I knew where to send a postcard it was too big a thing to send it. I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry.”

“All right.”

“All right?”

“You’re here now, ain’t you? You’re sorry, ain’t you? I ain’t gonna ask you t’rip your clothes off and scream an’ wail an’ beg me t’know you’re sorry. An’ sure, it ain’t like I’m happy with what you didn’t do in all those years, but…I went a little outta my mind a couple times too, an’ long as you’re not gonna go runnin’ off an’ never speakin’ t’anyone else again, I missed you too, I don’t wanna keep on missin’ you like I missed you, nobody wants t’miss someone like that.”

They both looked out the window to watch the people walking by, not too many this time of year in this part of the city. Scout glanced back at the people in the café sneaking glances their way and went back to staring out the window. He sipped at his coffee and didn’t say anything, not until he looked back at Pyro, at the way the day’s fading sunlight fell on the smooth side of her face, onto her hair and eyes.

“So how was China?”

“Oh, uh, it – it was nice.” She breathed out a tiny laugh and rolled her eyes. “I mean, it was – it was three and a half years, it was a lot. The food was fucking amazing, that’s for sure. I was hoping to get some real Chinese food while I’m here instead of fake American crap. I stayed in the south most of the time, I got this shithole of an apartment in Fuzhou and stayed there for a year and then started traveling again, it was…it…” Pyro rested her head on one hand and her elbow on the table, looked back at the people in the café and shook her head, then sighed again before looking back at Scout. “It was nice to fit in for being Chinese, but really weird to stand out for being an American.”

Scout hadn’t ever thought about it being like that – how for her it was always one thing on top of another and next to everything else. He nodded slowly and swallowed, finished off what was left of his coffee. “We could maybe try for some good Chinese food, I don’t go t’Chinatown much but I mean it’s Chinatown – San Francisco’s Chinatown ain’t Chinese food in China but it’s pretty good, it might kinda get what you’re lookin’ for, maybe. We could try it sometime, look for someplace like what they have over in the south there.”

“We could. They probably do, it’s just finding one.”

“So what else did y’do? You had that shithole apartment, an’ what else?”

“Right. I had that shithole.” She’d spent a year and a half down in the south, living in the city and trying to get used to there not being a war anymore. And she’d done that by flying herself halfway around the world to where she could go for days or weeks without speaking English – months, when she finally made it up north to the mountains for a while, to see what was up there. To see if the mountains and the dragons really did look like they did in all the photographs and paintings. Turned out they did, and it wasn’t too long after that before she started traveling again. Going through India by train, and part of southern Russia the same way, breezing around Europe a while – “Anywhere I could be fucking invisible, it beat the alternative,” – before heading back to the States. If Scout hadn’t caught her when he had, she’d be gone from the city by now, already making her way to Southern California.

“Look, you don’t need to worry, it’s not like I’m leaving first thing tomorrow. I’d like to get back down there sometime, see some of the – see what there is down there, but it’s like you said, it’s not going anywhere. And it gets gross this time of year. This is when the winds start picking up – if I go it’ll be after they’re gone.”

“Yeah, that comes up on the news sometimes – it’s what, Santa whatsit winds? Santa Maria?” He didn’t bother holding the door open for her, just stayed back long enough to at least close it after she came in.

“Santa Ana.” 

“Right, that. It gets on the news sometimes when there’s all those fires.” He smiled. “Don’t know why you’re missin’ those, I mean it’s you, but hey, don’t mind you stayin’ around a bit more, either. You know you can stay long as you want, right?” She rolled her eyes and nodded. “Jus’ makin’ sure.”

Four of his brothers had gone to college and they’d told him what it was like sharing a place with a roommate – not like being in the barracks with two hundred other guys, not like being in a house with brothers. From what he remembered them telling him, it wasn’t like what he had going with Pyro, either. Not when they had their own places to sleep and they didn’t have to fight for a bathroom when he had a spare one downstairs, but it got pretty close sometimes. And it got pretty close to living on a base, not just on nights when he thought about how she was asleep on the other side of the wall. But some days when they just bumped into each other at breakfast and didn’t see each other until dinner, what with both of them out of the house and busy the whole day.

Scout thought it was going to be one of those days – they were near the end of October and all he wanted to do was go out running during one of the warm snaps that came before it’d start to rain. If she had plans he didn’t hear them because he was too busy cussing out the toaster and shaking it upside-down to get the untoasted bread out.

“Freakin’ unbelievable. I just got this thing like three years ago, no way should a damn toaster break after three years, stupid modern piece of crap.”

“Can’t you get a new one?”

“That ain’t the point, Pyro, it’s that –”

“Can I see it?”

“What? Sure.” He handed it over and she peered inside, held it up to her ear and shook it, and then looked back inside again.

“Got a screwdriver?”

It took him five minutes to find one in the garage. Thirty minutes after that, she’d taken the toaster apart right there on the kitchen table, put it all back together, and he sat down and joined her with two buttered slices of perfect toast.

He waited until he’d finished them to ask.

“I worked in a garage before I joined RED. Car repairs, mostly. But I learned some other stuff when I was there, too.”

“Like how t’fix toasters?” Pyro nodded. “An’ makin’ flamethrowers?”

“No, that – well, okay, a little bit of that,” she laughed. “Mostly just how stuff worked, how to get everything working together with all the different parts to it – after a while, you get the basic idea for pretty much everything.”

“An’ didya have t’go t’school for that?”

“Nah.” Scout could tell that was all he’d be able to get out of her about that, at least right then, and took her dishes over to the sink so she wouldn’t have to get up. He was halfway through loading up the dishwasher when she asked, “So what are you doing today?”

“Oh, I was just gonna head out for a run, see what’s doin’ around the Marina, head over t’China Beach, nothin’ much. Why? You wanna tag along?”

“If you’re offering.”

“I mean, if you think you’d – hey!” He spun around and glared as best he could around his smile. “Yeah, I’m frickin’ offerin’, you sayin’ yes? ’Cause if you are, you’re gonna need something besides those boots, you’re askin’ for ankle trouble you go for a long run in those boots. You got anythin’ else t’wear?”

She didn’t even have a spare pair of boots, just the ones she wore all the time everywhere, but she had a seven-and-a-half women’s size foot and could about squeeze into a loosened-up pair of his old sneakers.

“Jesus, you’ve got tiny feet.”

“I got nimble toes, an’ I can run faster on ’em than you can go on yours, an’ you can pretty please shut up about it if you don’t want me takin’ those back.”

“Fine. I’ll keep quiet about your tiny girly feet.” She finished lacing them up, took a little walk around the couch with a tiny smile on her face. “These are really fucking comfy.”

“Yeah, I know. You wanna head out an’ really try ’em out?”

It took three blocks of feet hitting pavement for him to forget to be surprised at how she managed to almost keep pace with him. She’d always been plenty fast back in the war, one of the faster guys on the team most of the time and sometimes even one of the fastest; now that she wasn’t running inside one of her suits, lugging around an oxygen tank, a flamethrower and all her other crap, it wasn’t any wonder she was nearly as fast as he was right now. He’d slow down a bit sometimes if she got too far behind, or jog in place as he called out to her while she ran up the hill, and she’d always keep on pushing forward, always catching up to him.

It didn’t take them long to make it out to the Marina, up and down and through the hills, not even any fog around on this sharp October day – it wasn’t even cold enough for him to want his track jacket, but she’d worn her sweatshirt like she always did whenever she went outside, the hood flapping behind her when she’d run down the hills with a smile on her face. He’d call out to her when she’d stumble a bit, he’d run pace with her when she slowed down some, he’d even run circles around her when she stopped at a traffic light just to keep on moving. And she’d keep on going and always call back to him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Scout sprinted ahead when they got in sight of the water, street to sidewalk all the way to grass, leaving her one and two and three blocks behind, to get something new under his feet. He kept going a few paces before he turned around to see Pyro lagging behind, trying to keep up, trying harder than she’d been going for just a couple hills back. “Yeah, nice hustle you got there!” He threw back his head and laughed, “You keep on movin’ you – augh!”

She hadn’t slowed down when she’d barreled right into him, knocking him off his feet into the air to land flat on his ass. He hit the ground and she followed, landing right on top of him, and all the air got punched out of his lungs. It wasn’t like that hadn’t happened to him before, and he didn’t wait to grab at Pyro and try to roll on top of her, breath or no breath – she had her sweatshirt for grabbing, but he missed the hood and got her braid. She screamed out ‘fuck’ and grabbed his wrist with both hands, pulled him closer and made him let go, but he was fine with that because that was what it took for him to roll on top.

Not for long, because he was faster than her but she’d always been stronger, and he’d forgotten just how much stronger she was from hauling around all her equipment. She jerked her elbows up, kicked her legs around, and was back on top of him, pinning his hands down above his head, and they were both laughing too hard to take anything seriously.

“Jesus, Pyro, you could at least warn a guy!”

She was laughing hard, big deep breaths coming out fast, “Fuck, Scout, this is – it’s you – fuck – fuck.” Her hands dropped away.

“Pyro?”

She pulled herself off of him and collapsed down onto her hands and knees, still taking huge deep breaths, but not laughing at all – they were slower and deeper, like she couldn’t get enough air even breathing that way. Her eyes were closed tight, like if she’d been hurt, but he couldn’t see anything. She’d been fine just now, just two seconds ago, and he was right there but he had no goddamn idea what the hell had just happened.

“Pyro!” He got nothing from her, just more hard breathing. She didn’t push his hands away when he helped her move to sit down, and he kept one on her back to keep her up and another in her hand to let her hold it, even if she was gripping back hard enough to make his fingers throb. He didn’t try to move away and started babbling, not even listening to himself: “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, you hear me, I’m stayin’ right here, you tell me you need somethin’ an’ I’ll go get it but you don’t need nothin’ I ain’t going, you listenin’ t’me, I’m right here, you just let me –”

She took another deep breath and then stopped breathing altogether, leaned away from his hand but didn’t let go of the other one, and took another big, deep breath but one that was the normal kind people took when they needed to calm down. Then she finally let go and started grabbing at the bottom of her sweatshirt.

“What? Are you – oh, here, lemme, c’mon…” He helped her get it off, pull it over her head, show off her bare arms thanks to her t-shirt. Her eyes were still shut but she looked a little better, almost breathing like normal. “Anythin’ else?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do. I need something to drink. Some water. Is there something –”

“Not here but hold on, gimme maybe ten minutes, eight, I’ll be back in eight, you hang on I’ll be back in eight just you hang on ’till I get back, just hang on.” He tore off sprinting towards the Safeway at the end of the boulevard, the closest place he could think of that could sell him some water – six bottles of ice-cold water fresh from the cooler and Scout didn’t even wait to get his change at the check-out, just slapped down a twenty and ran to get back to where she still sat on the grass with her eyes finally open. She wasn’t looking like she’d pass out, but like she might puke instead.

Pyro moaned when he pressed one of them into her hands, held it to her forehead, to her chest between her breasts, to the back of her neck under her hair, and then finally opened it to drink. He didn’t open one for himself, just plunked down next to her while she drank it slow, holding it pressed against her wrists or her forehead between sips.

Scout didn’t say anything when she finished it, just handed her another. That one she gulped down, but the next one she took slow again. When she was done with that one, she looked like she was close to back to normal. “Thanks.” She sighed, then let her shoulders fall and looked down at the ground. “Oh, fuck.”

“You mind tellin’ me what that was about? You sick or somethin’? There somethin’ I shoulda known about before we –”

“No, I’m not, it’s not like that, it’s – fuck, I was just having too much fun and I wasn’t paying any fucking attention, I just – I just let myself go and get too hot.”

“You what?”

She pulled her sweatshirt back on and didn’t pull the hood up, and didn’t look at him either. “It’s not your fault. I was going too much, and I…I was being too fucking stupid. I’ll just head back, you can stay out if you want.”

“What the hell? Pyro, you weren’t –” He scrambled to his feet to follow her when she stood, then stopped and looked down at his hands. They’d gotten wet from holding the bottles, but they hadn’t been before. Not even without him wearing handwraps. “You weren’t sweating.”

“No.”

“That why you got too hot?”

She nodded.

“Can you sweat? I mean, at all? You can, right?”

“Yeah. Just not – not all that great. There’s a lot of me that can’t, it just doesn’t work. The parts that do can’t do it enough for everything, and the rest of it – it’s a big fucking mess.” She stuck her hands in her sweatshirt’s pockets and looked out at the bay. “I’ll just head back.”

“Great, I’ll head back with ya.”

“Jesus Christ, Scout –”

“Hey, you’re headin’ back, an’ so what if I wanna head back right now too? So we’re both goin’ back right now, so what? China Beach can wait, we got to th’Marina, might as well head back. We ran outta city, no reason t’keep goin’.”

He knew she wouldn’t laugh at that, but that was fine, her smiling was plenty. “Yeah. Yeah, we did. End of the goddamn city, right here.”

“That happens t’me sometimes.” They waited for the light to change, to let them cross the street to start walking back. “Jus’ headin’ out runnin’, I ain’t really payin’ attention, an’ then bam, ocean, or bam, bay, an’ that’s it, there ain’t more city. An’ it can sneak up on you, how there ain’t more city, maybe you just ain’t payin’ attention or maybe you ain’t thinkin’ right, maybe you’re too busy havin’ fun, but it happens, an’ you just gotta find a new way t’keep goin’. You can head left, or right, or you can turn around an’ head back.”

They didn’t head right back, not back exactly the way they’d come. He still had three bottles of water in his pack and it was still a nice day even with Pyro’s collapse. Even if he didn’t know exactly how that worked, her not sweating.

“It’s just scar tissue.” They’d taken a detour to get back to the water and walk past Fort Mason, then to head home through Russian Hill. “Fucking skin grafts and scar tissue.”

“Don’t skin grafts – I mean, it’s skin, right? Doesn’t it work t’do all the stuff skin does?”

“Fuck, I wish. Grafting works if the burn just isn’t healing otherwise, but it’s not going to do the trick for everything. It won’t get the pores for sweating, or the glands for oil, it’ll never heal cleanly if it gets cut, the hair never grows back, it’s a huge fucking mess to deal with.” He could see her moving her hands in the pockets where she’d stuck them, where they were still hiding, and looked back up at her face when she kept on talking. “And they just strip it off you – I knew a guy that got skin from a cadaver because he was way too fucking fragile to get anything from him even though he had enough healthy epidermis. But they took it from my legs when I needed it, and fuck, it didn’t hurt as much as scraping off all the dead stuff but it was fucking up there.”

“They had t’what?”

“Scrape off the dead stuff. Eschar.” She took one look at him and laughed, brushed the hair back from her face, and kept talking. “It’s not like everything melts off when you get burned. The stuff that sticks around, that stuff’s just fucking dead, and unless someone takes it off it’s just going to fucking sit there and definitely get you infected with something really fucking nasty. So they have to take it off. And you can’t just wash it off, you’ve got to scrape it off, or cut it off, and – and trust me, backstabs, miniguns, it hurts worse than so many goddamn ways to die. But – hey, it beats the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?”

Pyro shrugged. When she met his eyes, there was something far away in them. “Dying.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Scout didn’t have anything to say to that and neither did she. They walked up Lombard in silence until she declared, “I’m getting ice cream.”

“It’s October,” he said as he dashed on ahead of her across the street.

“And I don’t give a shit, I’m getting some goddamn ice cream.” Pyro didn’t like him opening doors for her, but if he went through first because he hustled a bit to get to a place faster and held the door behind him, then he could’ve just been holding it open for everyone slower than him, which happened to be everyone. He didn’t much care because it let him get the door for her. There wasn’t a bell that jingled when they came in, but everything else looked like how he remembered the old ice cream parlors looking. The place wasn’t trying for it, it just hadn’t changed anything since it’d opened back in the forties, and even the smell was the same. The milky cold sweetness that hit him when he opened the door. Pyro went right up to the counter to stare and he joined her.

“Y’know, I been by here a couple of times, an’ now I got no idea why I ain’t ever been inside.”

“Yeah, seriously.” He counted a total of thirty-three flavors – he knew some of them and there were a few he’d never even heard of, a couple he didn’t even know could even get made into ice cream. In the end, once he was done sampling some of the stranger ones, he settled on two scoops of chocolate chip in a little cup. Pyro only tried two and then got a scoop of almond praline in a little sugar cone. They traded tastes as they left, with him taking a lick of hers and her taking a spoonful of his, and they agreed they’d both gotten good choices and didn’t want to trade.

She sucked down little bites as they walked along, and with the ice cream Scout didn’t mind they weren’t going so fast. The chocolate chips weren’t like the ones he remembered; these were all the same size and shape, like chocolate chips for cookies, and didn’t break so easily between his teeth. But it was still really good ice cream. He took another big bite, swallowing the ice cream before rolling the chips around on his tongue, and watched Pyro take another big, slow lick up the side of her cone – she wasn’t smiling, just looking like she was really enjoying herself. She didn’t look like she’d have to stop for a while or like she was two steps away from collapsing again. He told her so, which just made her laugh and side-step towards him between licks. He jumped out of the way before she got anywhere close to hitting him, breathing fast, and she apologized the moment she saw she’d made him drop his little plastic spoon.

“It’s just a few blocks back, we could go get another.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” There was still enough ice cream left that it’d be a waste if he threw it away, and if it was hotter out he’d go ahead and let it melt so he could just drink it down. It wasn’t, though, so he just did the best he could to eat it without the spoon. He had to eat it gently, teasing out the chips with his tongue before swirling up the ice cream and sucking in little bites. Big licks like he was a cat lapping up cream, smaller ones to shape the ice cream back into something he could nibble. It was a trick to get it in his mouth without getting any on his nose, and he did his best to manage, being careful with where he put his tongue and how he held the little cup.

Scout smacked his lips to give his tongue a break and looked over at Pyro, who was just staring at him. She went right back to attacking her cone.


	25. Chapter 25

25.

People in marathons sometimes wore them. Scout saw them when he was running past everyone but never really paid any attention – he knew he’d never need one. He still didn’t, at least not for him. But the next time he was out early in the morning with almost nobody else in the city awake but the other serious runners and garbage collectors, he saw someone running with one on her back down by the Bay, and sprinted ahead to stop her so he could ask her about it. What the name of the things was, where he could buy one, about how much they’d cost.

Not only did they look damn silly, they had a name he couldn’t take seriously either. But he had to admit that it was pretty appropriate for what it did.

Pyro hadn’t seen one before she unwrapped the box.

“They’re called Camelbaks.”

“What?”

He fumbled a moment while he put it on, then turned around to show it off to her and how it worked. “See, it’s like a water bottle except it’s a backpack. You wear it an’ you can take a drink whenever y’need one, this little mouth thingie right here. Okay, yeah, I know it looks silly, but I was thinkin’ you need water when you’re out runnin’ you need t’carry it with you, an’ these hold plenty, a couple bottles’ worth plus there’s a pocket for your keys an’ another for a wallet, an’ if you got this whenever you need somethin’ t’drink you won’t have t’get t’where you were that time, you know what I mean, an’ –”

“No, yeah, I get all that. Here, let me try it on.” She had to tighten the straps twice, adjust and readjust them until everything was comfortable, and when it was she got up and did a little sort of wiggle to check. 

“I was just thinkin’ you always had those thermoses, an’ since you ain’t got your uniform with that bandolier t’carry any – hey, how’s it you never overheated in that? You were out runnin’ all day in that suit, how’d you manage t’stay on your feet?”

“It’s like you said, I had the thermoses. And there were Engie’s dispensers and whatever medigun Medic was using. And I could always shoot myself if it got too bad.” Scout laughed, and she smiled. “Happy birthday to you.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” He’d told her it was his birthday present to her, not because he might as well celebrate hers on his, but because it was a gift for him to get nice things for his friends and he knew she’d be able to use it. This wasn’t like him getting her a dress or a pair of shoes, and her admitting he was right and enjoying it was plenty of a gift enough.

Not that taking her out for oysters wasn’t fun, too. He treated himself to them twice a year, his birthday and Christmas, and he’d never had anyone come along for either of those dinners. He hadn’t been dating anyone for long enough, or they had other plans, or he didn’t want to make a big deal out of his birthday besides taking himself out for dinner. It wasn’t even a fancy place, not like other places he’d been where you had to bribe someone or get a table three weeks ahead of time. The place he liked in the Ferry Building didn’t take reservations; all anyone did was show up and hope it wasn’t too long a wait for a seat. This time it was just ten minutes to get a table for two and they waited it out by the water, watching seagulls and passing ships as night started coming in from behind Treasure Island, before they went back inside to champagne for him and beer for her.

Scout had read up on Fuzhou, the whole Fujian region, and he knew they ate oysters there. He just thought that she’d get them raw, like he did, or that even if she ordered them cooked instead of raw she wouldn’t shy away from eating one.

“C’mon. They taste like the ocean.”

“Have you smelled the fucking ocean?”

“We were just out there, you kiddin’ me? They’re salty, fresh. Nice an’ clean.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me. There’s no way anything that tastes the way the ocean smells is going to be clean, it’s all rotten seaweed and fishing boats and trawling –”

“The ocean, Pyro, the ocean, not the beach, you oughta head out on a boat sometime out t’where you can’t see land, you smell the ocean then, you’ll get it. Here, try one.”

“Fuck no.”

Scout grinned and swallowed it whole. No lemon, no butter, no sauce, no nothing, just plain, clean oyster, one of the best things he knew money could buy. It went smooth and soft down his throat, slippery and firm with a big burst of flavor – iron and sea salt, blood and water. It was like swallowing a lungful of Atlantic sea air. The look on Pyro’s face made it taste even better and he followed the first oyster with two more before taking a drink of his champagne.

He loved everything about them. How they came arranged just so on the trays of ice, how different they tasted raw or with just a bit of lemon squeezed over them, how their shells felt against his lips. A little bit of a chalky edge, how tiny fragile flakes of those shells would end up clinging to his fingers, the smooth and almost rocky coolness of the mother-of-pearl when he lay his tongue against it, before tipping it back to slide another down his throat.

Oysters had been the peak of luxury when he was a kid, more than steak, more than fresh pineapple in December, even more than lobster. It was the kind of luxury that came from food he never ate – only the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts could eat fresh oysters. They’d never crossed his lips until 1967 and even now, almost thirty years later, no matter how many times he showed up in an oyster bar in old jeans with people wearing ragged pants and scuffed boots, he still felt like a king when he ate them. Which was why he saved them for his birthday and Christmas – anything more than that, they’d lose that bit of magic. He’d been told that in the real old days, they’d been poor people’s food, how you could get them for pennies from streetcarts for lunch, and he’d thought that was just another Christmas fairytale until he looked it up in a book somewhere.

He swallowed down one more and signaled the waiter to bring him another dozen.

Pyro muttered something under her breath and kept eating her stew.

The next time he suggested Pyro come along, she said she’d just stay in for the night. “There’s no way I’m going to enjoy myself if I have to watch you eat more raw oysters.”

“All you gotta do’s try one an’ you see, but if you don’t wanna, I guess that’s fine, I’ll just have t’make peace with knowin’ you’re lettin’ yourself miss out on ’em.”

“Yeah, more for you.”

“Damn right.”

“Where was it you’re going after that?”

“Oh, jus’ Midnight Mass. Why?”

“No reason.” She shifted around on the chair, swapping legs hooked over the armrests, book still folded in her lap. “Just wondering when you’ll be back. Not that it matters, but – is it really at midnight?”

“Sometimes. This one is. You wanna come?”

“Nah.” That seemed to be it, until she interrupted him from the latest Bujold. “Do you believe in it?”

“Believe in what?”

“The whole – the whole Christmas thing, I guess. Communion? You believe in that?”

He started, stopped, tried to think of the right words to answer a question he’d never had to think about before, and then started again. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. There’s a lot of it that – I mean, I don’t think I’m really eatin’ th’body of Christ durin’ Communion, I know the wine’s stayin’ wine, but it ain’t supposed t’be – I mean, it’s supposed t’mean somethin’, an’ I believe in what it means. What the rituals mean. I go t’confession, I say the prayers, I give up meat an’ booze for Lent, yeah, yeah I believe it. I know not everybody does, but that ain’t my business, that’s somethin’ for God t’deal with. Whatever God they got.” He took a deep breath. “D’you – I mean, you got somethin’, don’t you?”

“Not really.” She tipped her head back to face the ceiling, her braid dangling down over the side most of the way to the floor. “Ancestors and spirits, sure. Ren and yi, li.” She said something in Chinese he knew he’d never be able to repeat back to her like she said it. “I was raised with that, but it’s not really the same thing.”

“That, what you said, the ruutzjha –”

“儒教.”

“Yeah, that. So if that ain’t a religion, then what is it?”

“It’s like a philosophy. Basic ideas for how you’re supposed to live your life, be a good person, how to behave, but it’s not religious. It’s just how you’re supposed to live your life.”

“But it ain’t got somethin’ t’worship.”

“Jesus, my parents wished,” she laughed. “No. Nothing like what you’ve got.”

“It’s okay for you t’come t’Mass anyway. If you want.”

Scout was okay that she still turned him down; he usually did Christmas stuff on his own these days and never did a whole lot of it anymore anyway. He didn’t even bother getting a tree – he didn’t need to, when the city put up one big enough for everybody out in Union Square and left it there past New Year’s – and if she wanted to sign the cards or throw something into the boxes he was sending around the world, he knew she’d have said something. What they did end up doing together wasn’t really a Christmas thing, even if it was on Christmas Day. Getting up early enough they’d be practically alone in the city when they went out running together, just their second time trying it, and now that she’d had enough time with the Camelbak to get used to running with it, she might almost be able to nearly keep up.

He also gave her a Christmas present, even though she didn’t have anything for him in return and he could tell she hadn’t expected to have him give her anything.

They’d both gotten up around five-forty five, early enough for them to get the dawn, and Scout thought waking up after less than four hours’ sleep almost felt like putting on an old pair of pants that hung just right. He made the coffee strong and the oatmeal sweet, and as soon as the dishes were in the sink he got her present from his bedroom closet. She shook it to try to figure out what he’d wrapped up in there, but couldn’t manage to guess. Good running shoes were light, but not that light, and he could tell from the look on her face she hadn’t expected them.

“I figured, y’know, I know what size you wear, an’ I thought you might as well have your own pair, a nice pair of shoes nobody else’s ever worn.” They were white with red and black stripes, and she laced them up as soon as she grabbed a fresh pair of socks, a huge grin on her face. She put on the Camelbak, pulled her sweatshirt on over everything, and they both stood still in the cool morning for a moment. It’d been clear the night before and the sky was still empty, colors just starting to come into it. They couldn’t hear any cars, any trucks, not even any birds – the city was empty, quiet, ready and waiting for them.

And he started laughing his head off when he tore down the street and heard her shout profanity that’d make all his brothers blush as she dashed after him.

Even with her pushing herself, even with the Camelbak, she never managed to catch up until he slowed down, and he was sure to stay on his feet and watching her when he did. They ran long and hard, in the middle of empty streets and down alleyways, rushing past the people that’d started to trickle out once the city had started waking up. But she never went like she had to collapse and he was fine with that not happening again ever. By the time they got past the Presido, out to the end of Sea Cliff Avenue, there were almost enough people out that they could say they had company.

They still got China Beach all to themselves. It was low tide when they got there, over the fence and down the steps, so there was a whole lot of sand there for them – more than enough to kick around, to push into big lumps that’d get washed away when the tide came back in, driftwood to throw back to the water and bits of smoothed-down sea glass to pick out of the sand. Scout startled and cried out when he saw dolphins jumping out of the water and so did Pyro when she saw them too.

He took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants to play tag with the little waves that kept crawling farther and farther up the beach. She kept her shoes on, digging them into the sand and kicking stuff around, the better to scuff them up, break them in.

“Are there beaches like this where you’re from?”

“What, Boston? Nah, not really – there’s some nice ones for goin’ out in summer, y’know, playin’ in the sand, but they’re more like Ocean Beach or the Marina, wide, long, no cliffs or nothin’. Way bigger’n this, an’ they always got more people, too. Me an’ all my brothers, we’d go out in summer when I was real little, go swimmin’, buy hot dogs, make a big day a’the whole thing.” He skipped up, twisted around and jogged backwards to escape the wave that followed him up the beach, erasing his footprints as it went. They’d almost always gone all eight of them alone, sometimes with their mother, just two summers he could remember before his father passed and his two oldest brothers got drafted. They’d to give up on going to college when they came home to take posts with their dad’s old crew soon as they could instead, to support their mother, their family. “You? There beaches like this where you’re from?”

“Some. Not a whole lot.” She kicked up a clump of sand, her hands deep in her sweatshirt pockets. “The ones most people give a shit about are the Ocean Beach kind, the ones for surfers and sunbathers, little kids everywhere. Totally packed with fucking tourists all year round. The ones for the people that lived there, they were sort of like this. Not that big, but more – more separate from the rest of the city, just places you could get down to the water and hang out in the sand. I never really went to either one, anyway – not even the ones that were really like this, with rocks and cliffs.”

“Why, because a’your scars?”

“Mostly. It’s really easy to get a sunburn, and yeah, I know, burn scars burning, don’t you fucking laugh, it took months to heal. And nobody really wanted to take me, or invite me if they were going. I pretty much bullied my way into going a couple of times, just one step up from crashing the parties, and…” She took a long drink from the Camelbak’s tube, looked out at the waves, shook her head and blinked a couple of times. “Yeah, there’s some beaches like this, and no, I never went out to them much.”

“What about China? They got beaches like this in China?”

“Are you shitting me? Why the fuck would I go to the beach?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t you? They’re fun, we’ve been havin’ fun, right? They got – they got driftwood, they got sea glass, see, like this.” He picked up a green piece shaped like Iowa to show to her, walking slowly, then faster as she started backing up after realizing what he was doing, and he went faster to keep her from getting away from him. There wasn’t a lot of beach, not with the tide coming in, but it was still enough to have fun on – to run on, to get sand between all ten toes, to chase Pyro when she started running away and laugh when he started running after her.

They ran across the beach, one side to the other and back and over again, sometimes him chasing her and sometimes her chasing him, the waves coming up higher, the both of them going awkwardly on the sand when they lost a little speed to grab at the other or try to turn around. By the time they called it off, both of them taking sips from her Camelbak, someone had come by to open the gate down to the beach. He’d almost wanted to help her climb back over it, like the way they’d come in.


	26. Chapter 26

26.

It wasn’t until after Christmas and New Year’s, after the city took down the tree and all the decorations and put away the Embarcadero’s ice skating rink until November came around again, that enough of the tourists finally left, that it got a little easier to breathe. The decorations were always what got to Scout, the fake-snow stuff most of all. He’d seen enough real snow to know there wasn’t any point to faking it, even if the jackasses that designed the decorating plans said it was important for how things were supposed to look. If it was that important enough for how Christmas was supposed to look, a few yards of white felt and some tinsel around the streetlights in the parks weren’t going to freaking cut it anytime soon.

“There’s no reason they gotta have any. No good reason. Sure, they got plenty a’bad ones, but a ton a’bad reasons ain’t worth one good one.”

“Christ, tell me about it.” Pyro shook her head as they passed through the archway into Chinatown. “I mean, here, this is what it really looks like, people fucking live here, I’ve never seen anything get that right.”

“Nothin’?”

“Not that I can really remember.”

He’d been through the neighborhood a few times, just running through on his way to or from somewhere, and a couple of those he’d slowed down to look around. Boston’s Chinatown was tiny next to San Francisco’s, but it’d been close enough to South Boston and the Combat Zone. He’d been there enough times to figure he’d have some idea of what to expect once he’d moved across the country, and to realize how wrong he’d been when he thought the two places would be the same, just because they both had Chinese people in them. It wasn’t just how big it was, or how many people it had – it felt a lot like stepping into China, the first time he’d been through. Basically no English at all, all the smells and sounds and colors different. And that’d just been running through, everything hitting him one right after another until he came out the other side into a totally different world, like stepping out of a dream.

It was different now, walking through and taking it in, and it was really different to be there with someone who could read all of the signs and understand what everyone was saying. Pyro sometimes glanced at a sign with a face that said she was reading it instead of just looking at the shapes of the letters, or words, or whatever they used in Chinese writing. Not being able to read anything but the street signs and some of the t-shirts or understand what people were saying when they walked past made it seem even more apart from everything else. More than all the strange, wet smells from the backs of alleys and open windows, more than the pagodas and lanterns, even more than the gates had.

“Damn, this is nice,” Pyro sighed.

“Oh yeah? It stacks up well t’the real thing?”

“This is the real fucking thing. And it – yeah, it does, it’s nice to hear my Cantonese hasn’t –”

“Wait, what? You mean Chinese.”

“Mandarin, Cantonese, it’s – ah, never mind.” She stopped at one of the open-fronted grocery stores to look at a bin of what Scout guessed were dried mushrooms next to a bin of what Scout hoped were dried mushrooms. “Let’s just say it’s two kinds of Chinese that are different enough that knowing one doesn’t mean you know the other. I’m good in one, not so good with the other. But that wasn’t what I was talking about. I meant that – I – shit. I mean, it’s not as fucking superstitious here as it is over there. Everyone’s too Americanized to be that fucking superstitious about shit like bad luck being contagious.” She smiled at him without it getting to her eyes. “Most of them, anyway. So where’s dinner, anyway?”

“Oh, uh, the place is up on Clay, so if we’re on Grant it oughta be up that way.” All the San Francisco and Chinatown guidebooks he’d found in the library talked about it. They’d all said it was one of the better places in the city for people that wanted food like what they had in China – maybe not for what got cooked down south in Fuzhou by the ocean, but for what they made up north through the mountains. Scout knew he’d never had anything like what the place was supposed to serve, and with the smells that hit him when he opened the door for Pyro, he knew that’d have to change.

Maybe not right away, not with how many people also wanted to eat there that night. “No, we didn’t make a reservation.”

The hostess sighed. “It’s going to be a bit of a wait, then. I don’t think we can do better than a half-hour.”

“A half-hour?” He started reaching for his wallet and the fifties folded neat inside. “I guess that ain’t so bad, if y’don’t have anything, but if y’could check, then – hey!” Pyro stepped up to the podium, elbowing him right in the ribs. “What gives?”

“’Scuse me.” Pyro didn’t sound like she meant it. He was about to ask her for a real apology when she said something in Chinese to the hostess, who blinked, narrowed her eyes, and started talking in Chinese back to her.

Five minutes later, they got a table near the kitchen in a nearly full dining room.

“C’mon, what’d you say to her?”

“Nothing important.” This time her smile went all across her face. “I just asked her if she’d be able to sit us earlier than that.”

“No way you said just that in like five minutes, you had t’say more.”

She kept smiling and opened her menu. Scout looked at his, found something with beef, and looked up and around the room. It looked a little like other Chinese restaurants he’d been in, all three of them: it had the same pink tablecloths, the same little teacups that barely fit into his cupped hands, almost the same paintings of mountains and goldfish and people sitting down to dinner – most of them had animals, and the one of rabbits made him smile. But it didn’t have gold inlay on any pillars inside the dining room, no dragon sculptures in the entryway. The walls were light tan, not red, and he was the only white person in the whole place. The waitress filled their water glasses and poured them tea, nodding at whatever Pyro said before going off to another table. It wasn’t like the movies or where he’d eaten chop suey in Boston; it was where people ate what they’d had back in China. It was like the rest of Chinatown.

He took a drink of the tea and burned his tongue, switched to the ice water and looked around to watch everyone else eat. Only the waiters glanced over at them before going off to other tables.

When the waitress came back, Pyro asked him what he wanted first and said it again in Chinese. After she left, Scout asked, “Don’t y’think she speaks English?”

“Come on, it’s fun. It’s good practice.” She blew on her tea before she took a drink, and kept her eyes on the cup. “Thanks for taking me here.”

“Nah, it’s – I’m glad y’like it, but yeah, it’s cool. Glad y’like it.”

“You don’t need to pretend to be so fucking humble, asshole. Let me get the check tonight, okay? Let’s get that out of the way now, I don’t want to fucking race you or fight you for it, you picked the place, I’ll pay for dinner.”

“You know this ain’t a date.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that? Come on, Scout. I’m glad we’re here because I’m finally going to eat actual Chinese food tonight, I know you’re not doing this just to fuck me later. Fuck with me, sure, if you don’t let me get the check. If it’s that important to your manhood you can get the tip.”

“Okay. You get the check, I get the tip.”

“Good.” She poured herself another cup of tea from the metal teapot the waitress had left on the table. “You want some more?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

It wasn’t too much longer before the waitress came with their food, the smoked beef, the spicy beef, the long thin noodles, the garlicy bok choy, the steaming white rice that hung onto the serving spoon. Everything smelled rich and warm, with dark sauces and sharp pepper, everything cut evenly and arranged all neat. Scout took a bite of the spicy beef and chewed slowly – the sauce tingled on his burned tongue, then his tongue felt better, then burned again, but the meat was so good he didn’t want to take a drink of water.

Then he saw Pyro giving him the weirdest look, like he’d suddenly sprouted a pair of horns or jumped up and started singing something from the second act of _Dustbowl Follies_.

“What? I live in San Francisco for like seven years, you think I don’t know how to use chopsticks by now?”

“I think you know how to use them, I know you don’t know how to use them right.” She held hers up to show him. Hers didn’t cross over out past his thumb, just stayed running next to each other. She held them near the back, too, not up close to the front like he was. He tried moving his fingers to the back, and that didn’t help much, not until she reached over and moved his thumb to where it was supposed to be for holding them like that.

Take-out always came with little bamboo chopsticks that came out of an envelope and he had to break apart, sometimes right along the seam, sometimes with one of the sticks wearing a huge hat and the other missing a good chunk on the end. The ones he was eating with were solid white plastic without anything written on them, bigger and longer and nothing like what he was used to. Pyro didn’t have any trouble – when he grumbled she’d grown up with them, she just laughed and said “You fucking know it, now hold it steady.”

It took him a couple more tries before he gave up and went back to holding them close to the front. “I’m gonna practice at home, I’ll buy a nice pair an’ practice with them sometime, but right now, just lemme eat this, no way am I gonna relax an’ enjoy this if I’m too busy thinkin’ about how I’m eatin’ it instead of just freakin’ eating, all right?”

“All right.”

Their waitress came by and replaced their teapot, topped off their water, and said something to Pyro, who smiled and said something back. She nodded, and moved back to circling the room, taking a stop near the kitchen where a couple of other waiters were hanging out. Pyro glanced at them. Scout could almost hear what they said, but Pyro heard it and understood it. She muttered something under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She rolled her eyes and shifted in her seat. “It’s nothing.”

“See, y’say that, an’ I know it’s bull.” He folded his arms over his chest and leaned forward on the table. “I know they been talkin’ about us all night, an’ I know your Cantonese ain’t that great but it’s good enough you got us a table an’ y’ordered for us, I know that means it’s good enough t’get some idea what they’re sayin’ ’bout us. An’ I know ’cause you won’t tell me what it is that you got a pretty good idea. So c’mon. It ain’t nothin’, so what is it?”

“It’s not about you.”

“Yeah, an’ that’s supposed t’make me feel better. What’s it they’re sayin’?”

“It’s – it’s nothing, c’mon, we’re almost fucking done here –”

“What ain’t you tellin’ me? If it ain’t about me, it’s gotta be about you.”

“I’m really fucking enjoying this, okay, and I don’t –”

“C’mon.”

“Fine.” She sighed. “Fuck. If it’ll get you to fucking drop it, no, it’s not about you, but they’re talking about me. It’s mostly about me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They’re just fucking joking, Scout, they’re just saying I like white meat and –” He slammed his hands down on the table hard enough to make a little water splash out of their glasses and was halfway across the room before Pyro was on her feet, calling after him. “Look, this isn’t the worst –”

“Hey. Hey, you. Yeah, you buddy, yeah.” Three waiters and two waitresses stopped chatting to each other. One of the waiters stepped forward, almost Scout’s height.

“Yes? Yes, is there problem? Food all right, order okay?”

“Look, I don’t know if you don’t like me bein’ in here at all, you don’t like her bringin’ me in here, you don’t like seein’ us havin’ a meal together. Y’know, I don’t care. I really, really don’t give two craps if you don’t like what you’re seen’ when you look over there an’ see us, you see me, whatever. You wanna give a shit about that, fine. But you got somethin’ t’say about it? You got somethin’ t’say about me? You say it t’me, you say it t’my face.”

The waiter glanced back at the people behind him, Pyro standing behind Scout, and shook his head. “Okay, look here, pal,” he said in the flattest, most Californian accent Scout had ever heard. “I don’t know what –”

That was as far as he got before Scout’s fist hit home, right smack on his jaw. Everything went quiet, the waiter blinking as blood ran down his chin, Scout trembling with blood on his knuckles, and then everyone started shouting. Glasses broke, plates crashed, someone jumped at him and he ducked and spun out of the way for his and Pyro’s waitress to jab him right between the ribs, and he’d fought Pyro too many times to care about punching a girl. She doubled over and Scout turned to a fist coming right at his face that he got out of the way of just in time for the guy to hit his ear.

“Yeah, who freakin’ wants some, we ain’t got all night here!”

He heard Pyro shout something he hoped was up to her usual standards, smiled, and got tripped to land flat on a table. It creaked, and he jumped to his feet right before it gave out from under him. There was someone waiting for him and he grabbed their oncoming fist to pull them closer, got his own free hand up close and personal with their face.

They didn’t stick around to see it through to the end, hightailing it out of there, Pyro jumping down the stairs, Scout throwing all the bills in his wallet over his shoulder as he ran out the door. Down the stairs, out the door, into the cold January night all lit up in the bright colors of Chinatown. They kept running and didn’t stop, not until they were out of there, out past California Street, all the way past Turk Street, not until they got to USF and into the shadows of Saint Ignatius.

Scout rolled out his shoulders and his neck, stretched his arms, then blinked and spun around to ask Pyro, “You all right?”

She nodded, leaning forward with her hands braced on her knees. No Camelbak this time, and maybe it was the yellowy streetlamps and the night that made her look better, and maybe it was just because she really was all right. Whatever it was that had her looking like she wasn’t going to collapse like she had at the Marina was good by Scout.

“We’re never going to be able to eat there again.”

“Nah.”

“Fucking worth it, though.”

“Oh, hell yeah. You gotta get tossed outta somewhere, get on a blacklist, might as well make sure they mean it when they do it.” He laughed, and wiped a hand over his face. “Think I should call ’em tomorrow? It ain’t like I can’t afford t’pay for it all.”

“If you think you should.”

“Maybe. Yeah, I probably do. Man, Mrs. Carlson ain’t gonna like hearin’ this.”

Pyro sat down on the edge of the fountain, leaning back so her braid almost reached the water. “I can help if it’s that bad.”

“It shouldn’t be – I mean, it’s gonna be bad, we freakin’ totaled the place, but I think I got it. This ain’t because you wanted t’pay for dinner, is it?”

She burst out laughing. He watched her laugh and then he started laughing too. After the last couple of hours, it felt good to laugh – like how it was back in the war when a day’s fighting had RED come out on top. Laughing together with a teammate over what they’d just done, remembering how hard it was with someone who’d been there, someone that knew how much fun it’d been. Nobody died back in the restaurant, there had been days on missions Scout never got a kill in, and it was always fun just the same.

Pyro dipped her hands in the water and ran it over her face and hair. “I can’t believe that fucking asshole.”

“Aw, man, me neither. Who says that sort of thing right next t’the people it’s about, an’ I don’t care I didn’t know what the hell he was sayin’ ’til you told me, it’s the goddamn principle of the whole shebang. You wanna get a good tip, you save that for the kitchen, you say it out in back behind the dumpsters, ain’t nobody says it right next t’the payin’ customers.” 

“And just because a guy’s out with a girl doesn’t mean they’re a goddamn couple.”

“Yeah, ’specially a city like this one.” Scout sat down next to her and, looking at the pattern of the light from the building play on its surface, slowly slid his hand into the fountain’s cool water. A lot cooler than the air, nice on his skin – it must have felt even better on hers. “Anyway. I’ll call Mrs. Carlson tomorrow, see what she can do – I probably got enough I could just buy the place, I don’t –”

“You know, I think I do too.”

“Y’do? I mean, no offence.”

“Don’t worry, none taken, and yeah, I still got most of it back in my room. I wasn’t ever all that big on spending it.”

“That was a pretty sweet hotel you were stayin’ in before you came over.”

“Yeah, it was.” She leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees. “I thought it’d be nice to stay in someplace a little more fancy for a change.”

“Travel can be cheap,” Scout allowed. “Y’know, if you keep it simple.”

“Trust me, I did.”

“An’ I do.”

“So do you need me to cover any of it?”

“Look, it’s nice for you t’offer, but I think I’m good. I mean, worst-case, I gotta mortgage the house or some crap like that, maybe settle outta court, whatever it is they wanna do I want ’em t’do it fast. An’ not that it wasn’t a lotta fun tearin’ into those bozos, tearin’ the place down, but it ain’t like I can call Miss Pauling an’ have her call whoever she called t’call it off, I gotta settle it all on me. Whatever they wanna do, let ’em do it, I can take it. I just don’t wanna be waitin’ around for it.” He leaned back and looked up at the flat night sky – no stars, there never were in cities. He’d never known how many stars there were until he was too wired to sleep one night early on at Sawmill and wandered outside. “It was worth it, though.”

“Oh, fuck yeah.”

“I ain’t felt this good since – God, I don’t even know, I can’t even remember the last time I felt this good. I’d remember, I know I would, maybe – nah.”

“What?”

“Jus’ thinkin’ out loud. This party I went to a while back, I had a good time but I didn’t have as good a time as we did tonight. An’ not jus’ gettin’ in that fight, I mean the food, jus’ bein’ out an’ laughin’.”

“I had a pretty good time, too.” She stood up, stretched out her arms, and asked him, “So which way is home again?”


	27. Chapter 27

27.

Pyro ended up donating a couple of zeroes to the total check once all the charges got hammered out. Mrs. Carlson called in more than a few favors to get everything settled by the end of the week and that included Scout sending off a handwritten letter apologizing for everything. He knew it meant he wouldn’t have to hire a lawyer or get a mortgage, but he knew nobody ought to get away with saying the sort of things the waiter said about Pyro. If anyone owed anybody an apology, it was that asshole.

He almost asked Pyro how she felt about it, just once, right before she left to go to the bank and trade in some of her money for a cashier’s check. What he told her instead was that Mrs. Carlson didn’t like handling that much money when it was in cash. After she was out the door, he went back to his room and stumbled through his rosary before going out for a run. Not a big one, not the kind where he deliberately ran out of city, just up to the top of Mount Sutro. It was one of those days where everything was covered in fog even at three in the afternoon, so there wasn’t any point sticking around to take in the great big view of nothing. Scout stopped for a while anyway – there wasn’t much of anything, but he didn’t have to share it with anyone.

Two weeks later, he was looking out over a whole lot of nothing nobody had to share again. It wasn’t a singles bar but it was Valentine’s Day, which meant every bar in San Francisco was a singles bar. Even the karaoke ones – which this one wasn’t, thank Christ, just a better class of a dive. He moved around everyone at tables, at booths, standing around and talking, until he got to an empty space at the bar next to a woman who didn’t even look at him until he ordered a beer and another of what she was having.

She didn’t smile at him when she thanked him. He was okay with that, but he’d wanted her to. She had her hair cut to around her ears and the sort of crow’s feet and soft lips women got after they started to get a little older, once they hit the middle of their third decade. He always liked how a woman like her looked when she smiled.

“Wendy’s a pretty name for a pretty woman.”

“It’s very nice of you to say so.” She sipped her mojito. “And is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?”

“Well, I got that Valentine’s the patron saint of beekeeping.”

She stopped mid-sip with her straw still in her mouth. “Excuse – wait, what?”

“Yeah, beekeeping. I ain’t sure why, but maybe it’s the whole takin’ care of a giant family thing, I really got no idea on that. But saint of engaged couples an’ happy marriages, that part makes sense, it’s what he died for an’ all. But beekepin’, y’got me on that one.”

“The saint of beekeepers.” She turned the stool to face Scout and leaned an elbow against the bar. “Do you think that’s where all the ‘bee mine’ cards come from?”

“Y’know, I think y’might be onto somethin’ there.”

That finally got a smile out of her. She didn’t put up any protest when he ordered another round for them again and stayed more interested in Scout than the drink in her hand. Her smile lingered on around the edges of her lips, when he told her about San Francisco’s own Saint Francis and his wonderful sense of humor. 

“I have to say, that explains a lot about the city. I guess it’s funny, but I’ve lived here for four years and I’ve never really thought about the name.”

“You wanna hear somethin’ funny about city names? Not real funny, just kinda silly, it’s that Saint Diego, San Diego, he’s a Franciscan. The saint of Franciscans. Saint Francis, Saint Diego, jus’ a silly little thing, y’know?”

“I do now.”

“But, hey, there’s so many San this and Saint that around California, Mateo, Joaquin, Barbara, Clara, pretty much like half the cities on the coast got saints for names, you’re gonna get somethin’ like that happenin’ at least once.”

“Cruz. Quentin.”

“Yeah, those ones too. There’s a saint for pretty much everythin’. Beekeepers, yeah, y’know, archers, farmers, soldiers, laundry women. Lighthouse keepers! Cities, countries, Ireland’s got three. Brigid, Columba, Patrick. Y’know Lawrence is the saint of cooks ’cause he was burned t’death?”

“No.”

“Yes! An’ he said, they say when he was roastin’, that they outta turn him over, ’cause they got that one side done.”

“That’s terrible! Why am I laughing?”

“’Cause it’s funny.”

Scout had spent almost every Sunday for nearly six straight years pent up inside a church classroom with two dozen other kids his age, all of them studying the prayers, the gospels, the parables, a nd all of the saints from the Fathers of the Church. The most he could say for all those Sundays was that he’d won a couple of little prizes for getting everything right on some of the tests – they’d never been anything much better than what came out of cereal boxes – and his mother liked them more than he had. As soon as he could, he’d been out of there, running with his brothers and friends, always trying to be the first to every fight. He hadn’t looked back, not even once. But sometimes something on a bulletin board in the church’s hallway or a flyer on a wall caught his eye, and he’d stop and take a look. Or he’d pick up a newsletter left on the pews, skimming through it to see what the people in charge decided to teach their kids nowadays.

It wasn’t that he missed being cooped up, or getting his hand hit with rulers, or even having to memorize all the names and dates. But there was something good to those Sundays, something he missed that he didn’t see in the flyers or newsletters – how seriously people used to take it. He knew people ought to know what their faith was supposed to mean to them and that it was something people should learn when they were kids.

She kept laughing as Scout ordered another round, nothing specific, just asking for the bartender to surprise them. It was her that put in their last order – two seltzers with lemon and lime – and then for the tab. She put up a little protest at Scout grabbing it before she could blink, but he managed to quiet her and keep her smiling, told her his house wasn’t too far from here, not even two miles.

“Y’feelin’ okay t’walk? If you ain’t, an’ I hope you are –”

“No, I’m – I’m good to walk, if it’s not that far.”

“Mile an’ a half. We’ll go slow.”

Usually for Scout, taking a mile and a half slow meant taking ten minutes. Tonight, walking with a woman wearing decent heels who’d had a few drinks, it took close to an hour walking carefully and paying attention to the stoplights and crosswalk signs, more than enough time for both of them to sober up enough for a hookup. He kept pace with her pretty much every step of the way, until they got within spitting distance of home and he could dash ahead to open the door and invite her inside. It was more than a relief to run like that, even just for half a block.

“Hey,” he whispered as he took her jacket, “I got somebody over. No, not like that – just got an old friend stayin’ here, in that bedroom there, we gotta keep it down, you okay –”

She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled him over for a kiss, and that was enough of an answer for him. He’d promised a good time together and made sure he delivered, gave her twice as good a time as he’d had. It’d been way too long since he’d had a good time with anyone, nearly a year, but even after he was spooning up behind her after, he wasn’t anywhere near falling asleep. 

He rolled over, away from a woman whose name he didn’t remember, pushed his head into a pillow to get as much dark as he could and did his best to not think about anything.

It was the smell of coffee that woke him the next morning. He was on his feet with his hand on the doorknob before he remembered everything the night before and what he’d managed to forget. Right after he checked that the woman who came home with him was still asleep, he started digging through her purse until he found her wallet and driver’s license.

Pyro was already dressed and pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Hey, good morning.”

“Yeah, you too.” He leaned against the fridge and stared down at his mug, waiting for the coffee to cool off, glancing through the little window over the sink, out past the balcony. “So I was thinkin’ maybe this week we might get out t’Alcatraz, I was lookin’ at tickets an’ – oh.” They both glanced over when his bedroom door opened, and there was Wendy, in one of his shirts, eyes darting between him and Pyro and her mouth shut tight.

Scout almost dropped his coffee trying to put it down fast, got right up to Wendy to stand between her and Pyro, put his hands on her shoulders. “Wendy? Wendy! Yeah, we’re – you two, uh, whatsit, Lin! Yeah, Lin, Wendy, Wendy, this is Lin, she’s the old friend I got stayin’ over, remember, she’s why we had t’stay, y’know, had t’stay discreet, we didn’t wake you or nothin’ last night did we?”

“No, I slept fine,” Pyro said.

“Great, glad t’hear we didn’t keep you up, an’ you even made everybody coffee, hey, thanks. Wendy, how d’you want yours?”

Wendy swallowed, blinked, nodded a couple of times. “Cream, no sugar. Milk if you have.”

“Yeah, we’ve got milk. Whole’s good?”

“Whole’s fine.”

“So, uh, Lin, you ain’t had breakfast yet?”

“No.”

“You want me t’make you somethin’? Wendy, you want cereal, eggs, we got oatmeal somewhere if you want, I think –”

“I’ll just have some toast.”

“Toast, great! Lin, you want toast?”

“Sure.”

“Toast for everybody, okay, you go sit down, uh, Lin, you wanna get out the jam?”

Once they all sat down, Wendy didn’t stay for much longer, just long enough to get her clothes on and stuff together, not even sticking around to brush her teeth. She thanked Scout for a nice night and Pyro for the coffee, and then she was out the door and on her way to work. As soon as it closed behind her Scout breathed a sigh of relief and went to load up the dishwasher.

“So anyway, I was sayin’ we might –”

“How long are we going to do this?”

“What?”

“I don’t mind. I mean it, I don’t. You’ve got your own fucking life here, I’m not going to say what you’re supposed to do with it, but this whole thing, our little arrangement here, how long are we going to do it?”

“Do what?” He sat back down next to her. “You mean you stayin’ here? C’mon, Pyro, we talked about this, you know you can stay long as you want, you ain’t thinkin’ of leavin’, are you? Don’t tell me you’re –”

“It’s not that. I’m not –”

“Is it Wendy? Are you mad about me bringin’ her home? Really? ’Cause you don’t need t’be, it wasn’t anythin’, just, y’know, just some fun, jus’ a fun night, nothin’ important. Look, if it was – if you wanted t’know beforehand, we could, I could do that next time, maybe let you know I’m thinkin’ about comin’ home with someone some night or call you, call home from the bar or whatever, maybe. I’m sorry if you –”

“No, that’s not it. You don’t need to fucking apologize. I’m asking if this is going to keep going on. I don’t mean you going out and finding women to fuck, I mean me staying here.”

“An’ I’m tellin’ you, again, like I tell you every time you ask, you can stay as long as you want.” He stood up and reached out towards her mug. She didn’t pull back or move away and he held his fingers on the rim, barely touching it, not even touching her. “You know that, right? You know I ain’t just gonna say, pack your stuff you’re headin’ out, I ain’t gonna do that. Pyro, tell me you know that.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, good.” She let go, and he finally picked up the mug to take to the kitchen along with the rest of the breakfast dishes. By the time he was done loading up the dishwasher, she’d finally gotten up from the table, to head over and stand in the living room. He called out, “Hey, y’know that if you ever wanna bring someone home, that’s okay.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I mean, you got needs too, you gotta get ’em filled sometimes, an’ you wanna bring a guy here instead of goin’ t’his place, I’m fine with you doin’ that. Everybody’s got ’em, an’ if you ain’t been seein’ to ’em just ’cause you’ve been all worried about bringin’ someone here or goin’ over there, it’s –”

“What the fuck are you even talking about?”

Scout took a step back. “I what now?”

“What are you – what the fuck, Scout.”

“Look, I’m jus’ sayin’, you don’t have t’keep yourself cooped up or nothin’. You don’t need t’worry just ’cause it’s not your house t’bring someone to. You wanna have a nice time with a guy an’ bring him here t’do it, I ain’t got a problem with that.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You think – you really think I’m jealous about that, about Wendy this morning. You think I’m jealous. That’s not what I’m fucking saying. And even if I did want to go out and fuck someone, it wouldn’t be worth it for me to even fucking try.”

“Why not?” He crossed his arms over his chest. She blinked and then stared at him.

“You have to ask. You have to fucking ask. Jesus, it’s less worth it to explain it to you than to go out and try to find someone who isn’t just looking for his fetish.”

“But you’d be tryin’. Sometimes goin’ out means getting’ hurt, but at least it’s tryin’. You’re ready t’just not even try it at all? Pyro, c’mon. This is San Francisco, there’s gotta be someone who – who…”

Her words caught up with him, and he swallowed, hard.

“Sorry.”

“You fucking should be.”

“I mean, I’m jus’ sayin’, it ain’t like there’s nobody out there, it ain’t like we can’t find somebody who’d –”

“Right there. Just right there. Shut the fuck up. Just fucking stop, okay?”

Scout started to open his mouth and keep on going – there wasn’t anything he wanted to do more than keep going – and then he shut it again, waited a moment. “Okay.”

“Good.”


	28. Chapter 28

28.

“It wasn’t like I could’ve gone home with her t’her place, y’know? I mean, no time t’scope out the place, see what it’s like before spendin’ the whole night, no way could I stay over if I didn’t get t’know it first.”

Jake nodded and opened up a beer. “I’ve tried telling people exactly that so many times, and I try to think that it’s funny how almost nobody gets it.”

“You’d think everybody would. It just makes sense, right? You gotta know a place’s safe, or you got safe people around. Jus’ goin’ over, you can’t just know that.”

“Who knows.”

“Excuse me,” Steve poked his head inside the kitchen, “but you really should be out here for your own shindig.”

“Yeah, we been in here for what, ten minutes? Don’t answer, it don’t matter, we’ve been talkin’ long enough, you get back t’your own party.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Jake said, laughing. “Guess I’d better get back out there.”

After a couple of years kicking around Portland, Jake had gotten lucky enough to land a job with Bechtel and then got even luckier to find a place of his own on the starting salary. It was just big enough for two people to share if they didn’t get pets or kids, or for a dozen-some-odd friends and guests to hang out and celebrate someone coming back to the city. Andy and Paul each brought a girl, Chris was with two of his friends from work, Brian came alone, Steve brought his wife, and Scout came with Pyro. Jake had shaken hands with her when she’d showed up, to be a good host, and hadn’t looked her way since. Not even glancing over where she sat alone on the edge of the couch.

Scout handed her a beer and plopped down next to her. They clinked bottles and each took a drink, watching everyone else mingle. Chris and one of his friends were in the corner with Brian and got joined by Andy and his girl. Paul’s girl was talking to Steve’s wife, who brought her over to Jake to have her say something that made him laugh. Paul joined in, and Steve and his wife came over to Pyro and Scout on the couch, him standing and her sitting next to Scout.

“Nadia, this is the guy I was telling you about, remember?”

“Yes. I’m pleased to say hello at last.” Her English was smooth, more than enough for Scout to hear how much she’d practiced it. 

“Pleased t’meet you, too.” This close up, she didn’t look at all like a woman who’d met her husband in a strip club in Korea, too clean and respectable in a plain gray dress and almost no make-up. “So you’re likin’ San Francisco?”

“Very much. It has a lot of charm to offer.”

“You bet it does. I been livin’ here close t’eight years an’ it’s still got so much – I mean, jus’ check out the pizza we got here. Cauliflower on pizza? Only in San Francisco.”

“Tell me you aren’t knocking Zante’s,” Steve said.

“Hell no. What kinda guy you take me for, who doesn’t love Zante’s? Place’s an institution.”

“The cooking here is wonderful,” Nadia said. “And I haven’t even had to hunt for so many things I thought wouldn’t be here for me.”

“Yeah, I believe that. Hey, Steve, could you grab me another beer?”

“One for me, too.”

Steve did a double-take at Pyro’s request. “Ah – certainly. And Nadia, do you want anything?”

“Just one more rum and cola for me.”

“One rum and coke, two beers, and I’ll be right back.”

Scout felt the cushions shift as Pyro leaned back into them without having to watch her. He turned back to Nadia, who was watching her husband mix her drink across the room. “So how d’you say your name in Russian?”

“Pardon?”

“It ain’t a big deal if you don’t wanna say, I was jus’ wonderin’ ’cause I know Nadia ain’t the Russian, it’s a, what’s the word for little, diminishing – diminutive, it’s the diminutive, I know that, but I don’t know what’s it the diminutive for.”

“Nadéžda,” she said.

“Надежда, that’s real pretty.” Her eyes went huge. “No, don’t – I don’t speak it, I just know how t’say it, y’know, how t’say a name an’ not a whole lot more, nothin’ polite. Uh, Lin an’ me, Steve toldya we worked together?” She nodded. “We worked with a Russian, too, an’ he made sure we knew how t’say what we were sayin’ right. An’ Lin, I know what you’re thinkin’ there, we got a nice girl over here, don’t even think of it.” Pyro said something in Mandarin. “Just assume what she said was rude enough t’make a grandmother faint.”

“Not my grandmother,” Nadia smiled.

“Okay, not mine either, but someone’s grandma. Aw, thanks.” He and Pyro took their beers and Nadia took her rum and coke. “A toast?”

“A toast,” Steve echoed.

Nadia raised her cup. “Твоё здоровье.”

“Твоё здоровье,” Scout and Pyro echoed.

The night got a little easier after that – people still weren’t looking at Pyro and she still wasn’t saying much, but they weren’t looking away as soon as she opened her mouth and said something. When Scout got back from the bathroom, nobody had grabbed his spot, and even though he knew why – and he knew if he thought about it, he’d get mad enough he’d have to leave – he was glad it was still there and that nobody was going to take it from him. Steve and Chris were talking with Nadia and Pyro was nodding along, working through her third beer of the night. Scout stood behind Pyro and leaned on the couch instead of sitting back down.

“Hey,” Chris said. “I was just, right, where was –”

“Living in America,” Steve prompted.

“Right, living in America, Nadia was telling me six years isn’t too long, it’s that whole thing, the nation of immigrants part.”

“Everyone being from somewhere else.”

“Unless they came from here first,” Nadia said.

“You’d need to go pretty far back to say you came from here first, that’s the thing.” Chris took a long drink and wiped his mouth before going on. “My family wasn’t American until my grandparents came over, and I know some guys who can’t even say that, maybe it was their parents that came over, maybe it was them that got off the plane, off a boat – they’re still Americans, right, but it’s the whole, not the foothold, it’s being an immigrant, that’s part of how this country works. I mean, Steve, I know you’re from Kansas and your family’s from Serbia, and Lin, where are you from?”

Scout jerked his head up to stare at Chris, not ready to believe he’d just heard him ask Pyro that, so not ready to believe it that it took him a moment to get together enough to open his mouth. “Uh, hey –”

“Los Angeles,” Pyro said.

He wasn’t ready to believe that, either.

Neither was Chris. “No, I mean – I wanted to know, where are you from, really?”

“I know what the fuck you meant. I’m from Los Angeles.”

“Okay, so you yourself are from LA, but the rest of you, I’m trying to ask –”

“Where are my parents from? Los Angeles. Where are my grandparents from? Los Angeles. My great-grandparents? Los Angeles. Maybe your family came over from where-the-fuck-ever a few decades ago, but mine came over in the eighteen-forties. And from what you’re saying my family’s been American a hell of a lot longer than yours has so you can just shut the fuck up about asking me where I’m from.”

Chris had backed away from the couch and so had Steve, Nadia was leaning away from Pyro, and Scout couldn’t make himself move. He couldn’t see her face but he could see how she’d set her shoulders back, how she held her head forward, he could hear the burning anger in her voice, “It’s nice you believe that bullshit about –”

“Hang on, hold on, what the hell are you going on about, this isn’t – what the fuck are you coming onto me about this for?”

“You’re the asshole who asked me.”

“Lin, relax,” Steve said, putting an arm around Chris and moving him aside to step in front of him. “He was just asking a simple question, there’s no need.”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“No, I’m not going to fucking relax, yes, there is a fucking need.” She stood up, started walking towards him. “You don’t get to fucking ask me that, you don’t get –”

“We’re leavin’,” Scout said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Everyone looked right at him, Pyro whipping her head around fast enough her braid snapped through the air.

“What the fuck?”

“We’re leavin’. An’ I get it, okay, an’ I’m sorry my friends are bein’ assholes. Nobody’s got any excuse for bein’ an asshole, an’ we’re gonna go now. Because ain’t nobody’s gonna walk away happy here, so we’re gonna settle on walkin’ away before anyone gets hurt. An’ you an’ I both know we ain’t got nobody t’call t’clean up after us if we get into a mess like we used to. We’re gonna say goodbye an’ leave, okay?”

She looked at him, face empty except for the anger around her eyes, then knocked away his hand and stomped out the door. Everyone parted to let her pass, and Scout gave Jake a huge thank-you handshake before heading out after her. She was already running fast and hard, and he did his best to keep pace with her; she didn’t say anything and he didn’t ask, not until they got home, got the door closed behind them and she stomped off to her room, slamming and locking the door.

He gave her twenty minutes to herself before knocking.

“What the fuck do you want?” She shouted.

“Listen, I ain’t apologizin’ for them, I wanna talk make sure you’re good enough you won’t go burnin’ anything down is all!”

“No!”

“Pyro, listen, I just –”

“Will you just fuck off.”

“No, I ain’t gonna go just fuck off, this is my house, remember! I wanna say –”

She threw the door open hard enough that he almost lost his balance, just a few inches away right in his face, eyes hard and teeth clenched.

“I wanna say the fireplaces work.”

“What the – what?”

“The fireplaces work, an’ we can go get stuff from a hardware store, lighter fluid an’ wood an’ whatever. I know you, Pyro, we’ve been friends long enough for me t’know you’re gonna – look, I ain’t sayin’ don’t be mad ’cause you should be, I’m sayin’ we got stuff, I’m sayin’ you don’t need t’go choppin’ anythin’ down t’get somethin’ t’burn, that’s all I’m sayin’, okay?”

He held his breath until she said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s go get some fucking lighter fluid.”

“Okay.”

The nearest hardware store was barely three blocks over, just across and up the street from where he’d taken Charlie for crêpes ages ago. He’d gone there plenty of times for things like light bulbs and detergent, never anything like logs of wood and lighter fluid. Pyro looked like she had – she knew what she was doing, filling up the cart like she didn’t have to think about it. The only time she hesitated was right before she grabbed two newspapers and tossed them on top of everything else she’d loaded. She paid for it all with cash and carried most of it back, grabbing the bags the cashier handed over before Scout could make a move, letting him take the last one, the lightest one, the one with just the newspapers.

Once they got back they went downstairs and she laid out everything while he checked the fireplace itself, made sure the flue worked, got the poker. He scooted away and watched her set up the wood, crumble one of the papers beneath it, and take a deep breath before using her lighter on another, held it in front of her face a moment, then thrust it into the fireplace.

And it all went up. No snapping, no crackling, not even any big boom that he thought they’d get from something like this. Off to on right away, the fire shooting up like it had somewhere to be and knew how much it needed to get there. Scout closed his eyes and could almost see it, she’d made it that bright, and he rubbed his eyes for a moment to adjust before he looked at Pyro.

She was sitting on her knees staring right straight at the fire. No blinking or anything, her hands clenched on her legs, the light slipping all over her scars. He watched her lean in, lean away, scoot to where she’d leaned in, then lean in again and right back where she could sit close enough to feel the heat without getting close enough for it to hurt. She sat down with her arms wrapped around her legs, taking deep breaths, focused on the fire and nothing else in the world.

It must have been what she’d looked like under her mask whenever she’d built a bonfire or watched someone burn.

Scout moved closer, and a little closer than that, until he was sitting next to her. She didn’t move away, probably because she hadn’t noticed. He didn’t try to get her attention, or put his arm around her, or lean in closer, just sat near her. Even if she didn’t know he was there, he did, and after what they’d done – trying to bring her to hang out with his friends after a month of the cold shoulder from Wendy, having the afternoon blow up like it did – he knew he needed to know.

They sat side by side, her watching the fire, him looking between the fire and her. Pyro didn’t move from where she was sitting. Scout sometimes thought he might get up to go do something else, to take a piss or get a sandwich, and stayed right next to her.

He didn’t check when they sat down, but when they got up after she’d finally had enough of whatever the fire was giving her, when she made a little sigh when the fire started coming down from being like it had somewhere to go, burning itself out, they’d been sitting long enough they were both a little shaky on their feet. Scout got to his first and stretched a bit and almost offered her a hand getting up, then stepped back to stretch some more.

“Hey.” She looked at him with a face as blank as her mask. “You feelin’ better?” She nodded. “Good. You hungry? We got stuff upstairs, I could make somethin’ if you want.”

Pyro opened her mouth, licked her lips, then said, “Just whatever’s fine.”

“Okay. Let’s head up, see what we got.”

They didn’t bother reheating the spaghetti when just dumping it out of the container and topping it with leftover tomato sauce was already almost too much work. It was still fine, even pretty good, but Scout knew both of them would’ve been fine with month-old stew from the back of the fridge as long as it was there and didn’t smell too funky. Pyro ate slowly, like she wasn’t paying attention. Like she wasn’t really back yet.

“My grandpa said he married my grandma because she was American.” That got her to look up at him, still a little far away, but closer than she’d been. “My grandma, my ma’s mother, she was born here, but my grandfathers, both of ’em, an’ my other grandma, my dad’s mother, they all got off the boat. An’ back then it was a big thing t’be from here, I mean bigger than it’s now, an’ that was a little bit of why he married her. So he could really say he married an American. Didn’t stop him from bein’ a Mick, but it still helped, y’know?”

“Kind of.”

“My grandfathers, both of ’em, neither of ’em served but they both wanted to, an’ they were both happy when their sons could, made a big deal ’bout it whenever anybody brought it up. An’ my dad was so proud he’d served, like that really proved it, ain’t nobody could say he wasn’t American now that he’d served. We had that, growin’ up, an’ I’m still glad I joined RED when I did, but when I got drafted – I mean, I knew what went on over there, all my brothers told me – I was still kinda happy, like here I am, I’m a real freakin’ American, nobody’s gonna take that away from me. Didn’t cancel out what’d they’d already said t’me, what everyone’d been sayin’ t’me an’ my family for years, but it was a way to be even more American, y’know, prove I’m American an’ not just Irish, y’know?”

“I think I do.”

“Hey, can I ask you somethin’? Back durin’ the war, we never – I didn’t – so you’re really from LA?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Huh. Y’know, that does kinda make sense. But it’s more – I mean, I know you never told me ’cause I never asked, an’ I was fine with not askin’ ’cause that’s how it was. Nobody asked anyone anythin’ big like that unless y’knew askin’ was safe an’ it pretty much always wasn’t, but if it’d been safe t’ask you, if it’d been okay askin’ you like how it was fine askin’ Engie or Demo, would you, I mean, would you’ve told me anything?”

It took her a while to answer, looking away from Scout and the last of her spaghetti, out the window at the San Francisco night. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so. I liked not being anyone.”

“That ain’t true. You were somebody, you always were someone, you were on the team, you were someone.”

“No, I mean – I mean…” She rubbed a hand over her face, her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut. Dropped her hand away and leaned back from the table. “I mean I couldn’t just fucking be someone like you’re saying I was until I got onto the team. I couldn’t be someone until I got rid of everything, fucking everything, and was just a blank face. My fucking mask. I finally got to pick out my face, make my face – yeah, 顏面, that’s face for you – I’d never been able to get that in my whole goddamn life. And I think even after you saw me, if you’d asked me where I was from, anything like that, I don’t know if I’d have told you. It would’ve depended on what you’d asked. If I’d worked in a garage, yeah, I was fine with telling everyone that. Where I was from, I don’t think so. That part, no.”

“But now it’s okay.” She nodded. “So all that doesn’t matter anymore? Say I go an’ ask you the same stuff now, where you’re from an’ all that, you’d tell me, not sayin’ nothin’ an’ not avoidin’ it but really tell me? You’d tell me? Really?”

“What the fuck – sure. Yeah, fine, I’ll tell you whatever the fuck you want. Just not tonight, okay? I’m not – not tonight.”

“Fine. I mean, it ain’t like I’m gonna ask you what your name is. Jus’ stuff like where you’re from.”

“That’s a relief.”

“You always knew I’m from Boston.”

“Yeah, well, you told us. Do you tell this shit to people now? You always tell them about whatever they’re asking?”

“Yeah! Okay, sometimes. But mostly, yeah, I tell ’em stuff. I tell ’em as much as I can, an’ I do that because they asked.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Beats not tellin’ anyone anything.”

“Not telling you where I’m from isn’t the same fucking thing as not telling you anything. Jesus, can we drop this? Please?”

“Since you asked.”

“Fuck you.”

“Just eat your freakin’ spaghetti.”

She did, for a few minutes, until she asked in a voice a lot smaller than usual, “What do you mean, it makes sense I’m from Los Angeles?”

“Oh. I mean, the whole California thing. Growin’ up an’ hearin’ about it, you hear all the stories, an’ I’ve lived here long enough t’know everyone from here’s a little bit, y’know, a little bit weird. Off. In a good way. You, you’re weird in a good way.”

Pyro coughed and nodded. “Thank you.”

They finished their spaghetti and Scout waited until Pyro got up to stand and follow her to the kitchen. She gave him her plate and left him to load the dishwasher while she went back to her room, and he peered around the corner to watch her close the door behind her.

He knew there wasn’t any way he could knock on her door and get her to let him in or for her to come out so they could talk, so he could tell her about how anytime anyone ever called him something nasty to his face he made sure to find out if they could back it up in a fight. How even when the war started, when everyone was still new to each other, he still didn’t hide anything. The war hadn’t ever been a place for him to lose everything the way it’d been for her.

And he knew he couldn’t talk to her about how the war became a place for him to lose everything else. How it’d turned into the only place he could say who he was, how he was doing. The only place that was real for him, something he couldn’t ever share with anyone who wasn’t there. They’d both given up everything for the war, only she’d done it right away and it’d taken him years to do it. She wasn’t in a place he could tell her that.

So he went back to his room and closed the door, knelt at the foot of his bed and ran through his rosary twice, then three times. Scout turned on the radio, low and soft because Pyro was right next door, and let the music wash over him, take him away from himself.


	29. Chapter 29

29.

Scout didn’t ask Pyro in the morning, not with the way she wasn’t looking at him. She even brushed her teeth in the downstairs bathroom and was out the door before he could even think of anything he might have wanted to know. By the time she got back, he still hadn’t thought of anything, and without him even asking that she’d already had dinner. And he was fine with that since he wasn’t feeling all that hungry. He kept the radio on again and the next morning listened to it flip over from late-night programming to early-morning DJ chatter for a while before getting up to make the coffee.

When he asked where she’d been that day, and nothing else, she told him she’d almost made it to the zoo. That instead of going there, she just walked around Lake Merced and Fort Funston until she came back, and then she went downstairs to take a shower.

As much as he wanted to grab her arm and shout at her, to look him in the eye and cut the bullcrap, he knew he’d be begging for a black eye and weeks of silence if he tried. It was dark out, an early April night, and he pulled on his own hoodie before heading out for a run that lasted long enough for him to meet the sunrise. When he woke up a few hours after getting back home, there was still a couple cups of coffee left in the pot and Pyro was gone again.

They kept on almost missing each other, both of them going for long walks and hard runs when the other was asleep or before they’d gotten back from their last one. Scout found himself running out of city again or realizing he’d read the last two paragraphs eight times and had given up to just stare at them.

One day he was sitting on the couch, staring off out the window, when Pyro said, “Okay, what the fuck is it?”

“What?” He pushed himself up and turned around to see her standing in the doorway, hands in her hoodie’s pockets and a scowl on her face. 

“You were sitting there when I left like eight hours ago. What the fuck have you done all day? Have you even gotten up? No, taking a piss doesn’t count. I mean, have you done anything? What the fuck is even going on with you right now?”

“What the hell you askin’ me for? Why d’you even give a shit?”

“Fuck,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Look, you don’t have to pretend it’s all sunshine and roses, but fuck, I know something’s going on. I never see you –”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see you much, neither.”

“That’s not the goddamn point.”

“So get to it.”

“It wouldn’t fucking kill you to try doing something. I don’t give a shit what it is, just stop moping around here all the time. You don’t have to tell me why, just get up and – and fuck, I don’t care, bake cookies or something. Just fucking stop.”

“Cookies.” He stood to stare at her. “Cookies.”

“Whatever.”

“Y’think I’m gonna stop mopin’ around just by bakin’ cookies.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll be fucking doing something and not just waiting. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you right now, but I know it’s not going to get better by lying on the couch and doing jack shit.”

“What makes you think I’m waitin’ for somethin’?”

“So what are you doing, then?”

“None of your goddamn business.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you right now?”

Scout crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “You ain’t gonna let up on this, are you?”

“No.”

“All right. If it’ll get you t’stop, let’s make some goddamn cookies.”

“Good.” She didn’t break eye contact, or moved away. “So – let’s go.”

“Right now.”

She kept glaring, blinked, let out a little huff. “Yes.”

“I dunno if we can.”

Pyro nodded, slowly. “Why not?”

“’Cause I don’t know if we got the stuff we need for ’em. We’re gonna need flour, an’ butter, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon an’ all those spices, I dunno if I got ’em in the kitchen.”

“So let’s go check.”

There was half a bag of flour in the cupboard, half a stick of butter and three eggs in the fridge, no vanilla or other spices anywhere, almost no sugar left. When Scout told Pyro they’d have to go out shopping for everything they were missing and how much it all was, Pyro said she’d carry everything. So just to spite her, he loaded five-pound bags of flour and sugar into the shopping cart, and a dozen different spices. He almost went for the mixes, for all the different kinds of cakes and pies, but holding the one for pumpkin pie in his hand all he could think of was his mother clicking her tongue at the idea that someone could make a mix that’d taste better than homemade – and how tired she’d looked, standing under the bright lights of their old grocery with him and three other sons – there’d been more defiance than pride in her voice. Scout put it back onto the shelf to grab the cardamom instead.

Pyro kept her word for the whole walk back and wouldn’t let Scout carry anything, not even the eggs. She hung back, slowly drinking the biggest cup of water she could find, while he put everything he didn’t need away, keeping the stuff for chocolate chip cookies out on the counters. Most of the stuff he jammed wherever it’d fit. When he got out the bowls, trays, and parchment paper and started laying everything out, she still didn’t make a move, not even to put her cup in the sink or get a refill.

“Ain’t you gonna lend a hand here?” Scout asked as he tied the apron around his waist.

It took her a moment to answer. “No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Look, this whole thing’s your idea. Ain’t you gonna pitch in even a little bit? Help cream the butter, mix the eggs?” She didn’t move. “Hang on, are you tellin’ me you don’t know how t’make cookies? Freakin’ cookies? Everybody knows how t’make ’em. C’mon, I know how t’make ’em. What, you never helped your mom out in the kitchen?” She shook her head again. “Really?”

She looked at him, very carefully, breathing deep, something around her eyes going tight. Then her face went soft, and she leaned against the nearest wall. “No. Never.”

“Why?”

“I think she didn’t want me to get any ideas about the stove.”

“She – oh. Uh, I guess I can kinda see that. If you don’t wanna work the oven, that’s fine, I got that part, it ain’t gonna come for a while anyway. But you can still do somethin’, you could read me what comes next in the recipe, stuff like that.”

“What’s the recipe?” 

“Here,” he said, handing over the chocolate chips. Then waited just a second to grab them, empty the bag into a bowl, and hand it back. She muttered something he ignored. “Didn’t you ever take, what, like Home Ec or somethin’? They had Home Ec out in California, right?”

“Yeah, they did. And I never took it.”

Scout looked up at her from opening the baking powder. “What? Why?”

She looked down at the chocolate chips and the flour out on the countertop, her eyes flicking up to his face. Then, she said, “My parents didn’t think it was such a great idea for me to use a stove anywhere. So they signed me out of Home Ec and gave me an extra period in study hall.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Pyro sighed and looked away again. “Okay, um, so what comes first? Creamin’ the butter?”

“Mix the flour with the baking soda and salt. Two-and-a-quarter cups, and a teaspoon of each.”

When they were done forty-five minutes later, staring at a good three dozen cookies cooling on their trays, still too hot to eat for a while longer, Pyro asked, “What are we going to do with them?”

“It was your idea, dumbass.” Scout shrugged. “Eat ’em, I guess.”

“All of them?”

“Maybe give some away.”

“Yeah. Box up the fuckers and give them to Nadia.”

“Now we’re talkin’.”

They almost didn’t get to her – not because the two of them ate them all, but because after boxing up the last twenty-eight and stepping out the door to look up and down the street, Scout realized he could toss them into a garbage can or give them to the first homeless guy he saw on Haigh Street and lie to Pyro about it without her ever knowing. Steve and Nadia were a good few miles away in South San Francisco and it’d take Scout a while to get there. They might not even be there and he’d have to leave a note with the cookies. Or the cookies might get stolen by raccoons or rats, even by crows. If he was going to throw them away, he might as well throw them away and know for certain where they were going. It was just an old take-out box, anyway. He could run out and hide in some spot in the Presidio nobody used anymore, gobble them all down and deal with the stomachache – and that almost sounded like a good idea. Almost as good as throwing them over the fence into someone’s backyard to make sure they’d get something they didn’t want paying them a visit, because they were damn good cookies. He could go back inside and call Nadia to see if she and Steve were home, it wouldn’t take him long to get there, all he wanted to do was drop off some cookies. And he was barely out onto the sidewalk, it was three steps to get back inside with Pyro lying on the couch.

He hitched up his bag a little higher and let it fall with a little thump, looking up and down the street, taking one last moment to wait for something before he started running. All Nadia managed to say when she answered the door was a little hello before Scout thrust the box at her, practically yelled that she had to take them, and didn’t wait to explain anything before turning around and running off faster than he’d gone to get there.

She’d left a message on the machine by the time he got back – Pyro hadn’t picked up the phone. Nadia and Steve were happy with the cookies, they were very tasty, if he could share the recipe she’d be quite happy to trade one of her own. He waited a couple of days to call her back, and almost as soon as she was done saying hello, he asked her to put her husband on.

Two weeks after that they were talking in person, all four of them. Except Pyro and Steve didn’t say anything to each other. They just waited in the living room while Scout and Nadia talked in the kitchen, about what their grandmothers had baked for them and how it was so hard to get everything right, before all of them heading out to the bar. It was in the Outer Richmond, one he and Steve had both gone to a few times but never with each other, just other friends they both knew. The place was pretty far from the Presidio and still military-friendly. The night was mostly Scout’s idea. After Steve said they ought to get together again, Scout said they might as well do it at a bar, bring Nadia along, he’d get someone too. He just hadn’t said it’d be Pyro.

The looks on everyone’s faces when they all realized made it hard for him to keep from smiling: Nadia surprised, Steve confused, Pyro not even offering Nadia a handshake. It got worse for everyone else and better for him as the night went on – not much of a night, maybe an hour at a little table and four rounds, tops – first with him so happy for a fancy cookie recipe that used raspberry jam, crushed pecans, and four different spices, then him giving Nadia the wrong kind of attention for a married woman, especially since she had her husband sitting right next to her. But Scout never let it get too much for Steve, made sure to include him too, and let Pyro decide if she wanted to say anything or pretend she was back in her old uniform and mask. 

When Steve insisted, Scout let him pay the tab, and when he got home, waited for Pyro to slam the door before going to take a nice, long shower and try to fall asleep.

Next Saturday night, he was back in the bar and Pyro was with him. He was already on his third beer when she was still working on her first. She wasn’t looking at him, which was okay, since he wasn’t looking at her either. She was eating her way through the pretzel basket like she wanted to make it suffer, and he finished off his beer and flagged the bartender down for a fourth. It was fresh from the fridge, the napkin sticking to the bottom when he lifted it up, the blue ink of the bar’s name already a little runny from the water dripping down the bottle’s sides. Scout wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and almost reached for a pretzel at the same time as Pyro, but jerked his hand back just in time. She hadn’t seen him reach at all, looking off down the bar, and he watched her hand, the skin of her fingers all twisted and tight, as she rummaged around and grabbed a couple more. But even after her hand was out of there, he didn’t go for any, just took another drink. He watched her chew the pretzels, take another pull at her dark Mexican beer right from the bottle, listen to the people talking up until they walked past them and then went to whispering. 

Scout could think of a dozen better things to do on a Saturday night in San Francisco than sit in a crowded bar that didn’t even have decent beer on tap. If it was any day of the week, day or night, he could break a hundred without even trying. There wasn’t anything keeping him in here, except he couldn’t figure out any good reason to leave. It wasn’t like he and Pyro would be having more fun somewhere else if they got up and left right then. If they stayed, they might figure out why they’d come in the first place. This wasn’t a good place for either of them to be, too much noise for too small a room, not enough people for a crowd to disappear in and too many people for everyone to mind their own business. It’d been better last week, with Nadia and Steve coming in with them, a couple more people backing them up, but now it was just him and Pyro alone. And she still wasn’t looking at him.

By the time he got to his sixth, she’d only started on her second. He set it down on the bar close enough and loud enough to her to get her attention, finally turning to face him.

“Why don’t ya ever drink that much?”

“Sorry?”

“It ain’t ever that much with you. Just that you’re always, it’s never anythin’ but miss four-beers-I’m-done. Y’ain’t one t’drink much. But y’like drinkin’, I know you do, you told me that part. I know that part. An’ it’s the whole, why ain’t you doin’ somethin’ y’like? That part.” Everything was getting a little fuzzier, a little quieter and farther away, and his fingers were getting harder to work right. “Think you could maybe go ahead an’ tell me that part tonight? Y’know, since it’s okay t’ask you shit an’ stuff now, maybe that’s somethin’ you can say now, maybe it ain’t. But I figure it ain’t somethin’ you shouldn’t be sayin’. Simple question a friend’s askin’. Why don’t ya ever drink that much?”

She kept looking him right in the eye while she took a drink. Then she set her own bottle down. “Why the fuck do you even care?”

“Oh. Well, why? Why. Could be I wanna know. Could be I’m jus’ makin’ conversation here, we’re in a bar, might as well talk about drinkin’. Could be, I know y’don’t wanna say, but ya might if I ask, so it’s me askin’, could be I’ve known you twenty-nine goddamn years an’ you ain’t never told me an’ why the fuck not ask you tonight?”

Pyro drank beer the way guys did, tipping the end of the bottle up and taking a pull without moving her head back. She set it back down and leaned in closer. “I don’t drink that much because I don’t like to drink too much.”

“Ooooh, yeah. Great reason there. Doin’ it because y’can. Climbin’ it ’cause it’s there. That ain’t what I mean an’ you know it, you mind cuttin’ the bullcrap?”

“Why do you even give a shit about how much I’m drinking?”

“So I gotta find a reason t’give a shit if I wanna ask a friend somethin’. ’Cause you bein’ my friend ain’t reason enough.” She looked away. “Yeah, you do that. You keep quiet, you mumble somethin’, mmm-mmhhh-nnnhhh, you – gimme a minute, I gotta take a piss.”

He braced himself against the urinal wall with one hand, aimed his dick with the other, and let it out slow for a moment, before going hard to get it out as fast as he could to get back to the bar. Nobody was in his seat, nobody at all was sitting nearer to Pyro than he’d been, and he was almost back to her when someone stepped right in his way and slammed right into him, making Scout stumble. The guy stepped back from Scout, glass in hand and his drink all over his shirt and the floor, tried to say something Scout couldn’t hear.

He was still close enough to drunk that the guy didn’t get punched right away. Lucky for him. He still got punched. 

The guy shouted, staggering back, hands pressed against his face. Scout ignored him, ignored the stares, ignored the silence, and stepped around the guy and the broken glass to walk back to his seat. He got three steps before the guy grabbed his shoulder.

Scout spun around and knocked his hand away, then punched him again.

The guy was reeling, swearing, waving on his feet but still on them. His hands dropped away from his face, black eye blossoming and blood streaming from his nose, the same smeared on Scout’s knuckles. Both his hands clenched tight, breathing hard and even. Glaring right back, waiting.

“You got anythin’ t’say now?”

“I don’t know where the fuck you think you are but you don’t get to just –”

Scout punched him again – or tried to, but both his arms were pinned behind his back.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Pyro hissed in his ear, then grabbed his arms and pulled him away, throwing him against the bar and stepping around to get in between the two of them.

“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The guy growled, wiping the blood off his chin.

“I’m taking care of my fucking idiot friend here, and we’re leaving.”

“Listen, you don’t get to –”

“No. We’re fucking leaving.” She turned to Scout. “Are you going to walk, or am I dragging you?”

The guy took a step closer, and Pyro stood her ground.

“You think you’re just going to walk out of here?” He asked.

“I know we are.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because we’re done fucking around.” 

He didn’t drop the glare or grimace. The guy kept his eyes on her face, and from where he was standing, Scout could see everything he could. Pyro wasn’t flinching – she wasn’t even blinking. She was staring right back, not giving anything away, standing like she always had when she was ready for a fight. And even though he saw everything the guy was seeing, Scout didn’t know what happened to make him change his mind about backing off. But he must have seen something, because the guy was the first one to step away.

She looked at him. Scout pushed himself off the bar, and the crowd parted to let them walk out in silence.

Once they got outside, Scout grabbed Pyro’s arm. She shouted and twisted away to look him in the eye, and then he let it rip.

“What the hell, Pyro?”

“What?”

“Jesus, Pyro, jus’ what the hell was that? What the hell were you thinkin’, jus’ draggin’ me outta there? You think I couldn’t’ve handled it? You thinkin’ I couldn’t take on one major asshole? What the hell’s your problem, you know I could’ve taken ’em! I could’ve taken four, eight, nine, fuck, I could’ve taken eleven guys after me, twelve, an’ come out on top, you thinkin’ maybe I’m too drunk or some crap? No, don’t, don’t even tell me, I don’t wanna hear anythin’, I don’t wanna hear why – you, what, you think I’m pickin’ fights t’lose ’em on purpose, you got some crap idea I wanna get hurt, you know me, you know me too freakin’ good t’know me wrong, an’ that’s just some bullcrap people say ’bout guys comin’ home from war, that ain’t me, no fuckin’ way is that me, I ain’t gonna lose a fight if I got any chance t’win, you know I would’ve won in there if you hadn’t’a stepped in like you did. Why the hell you think you gotta stop me from winnin’ a fight, you would’a been happy t’end it if you had t’get it done, an’ don’t you tell me you don’t fuckin’ miss it, don’t you fuckin’ say a single goddamn word you miss it, I know you do. You thinkin’ what, you thinkin’ you gotta grab a fight out from under me, you thinkin’ nobody ain’t gonna fight a freak, what, you thinkin’ that? You think nobody but nobody’s gonna fight you? You thinkin’ I gotta have someone look out for me, that I gotta get somebody t’get me outta danger, fuck! Why the hell you thinkin’ that, you thinkin’ I can’t take care a’myself! Ain’t nothin’ dangerous ’bout me bein’ in there! Just me havin’ a drink with a friend, that’s all we were doin’ until he shows up, an’ then you’re draggin’ us out! Why were you – why…”

She was standing with her hands on her hips, cocking her head to one side. He knew she was about two seconds away from tapping her foot to get him to get on with whatever he’d wanted to say.

Pyro sighed and asked, “You done now?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Let’s go home.”

They walked the whole way back in silence. He opened the door to let her in and she disappeared into her room. Closing the door behind him, he took two steps towards his own, then turned around and went back until he was standing in the living room. He hadn’t turned on any lights and there wasn’t much coming through any of the windows – a little bit from the street through the kitchen, the glow of the city between the blinds on the sliding patio doors. Still more than enough to see where he was, what was around him. All the space that belonged to nobody but him and all the things in it that still weren’t his. Like his mother’s paintings.

He opened the patio doors as quietly as he could, closing them behind him as he stepped out into the cool summer night. Early June in San Francisco didn’t always come with fog, some nights it was clear all the way out to the Pacific – it’d be in by morning, he could tell that much from how the breezes were blowing. But for now, it was just the city, all the houses with all their lights, and he could imagine everyone in all of those houses sleeping safe and sound. Scout leaned forward, resting his arms on the railing, rubbing his fingers together. Going out for a run until he collapsed somewhere around Daly City or Half Moon Bay had sounded pretty good for a while there. Now, not so much anymore; now, everything out of him and taking a deep breath to let the cool air hit the back of his throat, he knew his house wasn’t like all the rest, nobody asleep in here, nobody sound or safe, not really. Not tonight, not for either of them.

Scout remembered how much better he’d slept at the bases, for a long time. After the first six years, it got easier to sleep on a base than back in Boston. No matter where he was he never knew where he’d be sleeping next week or even the next day, if he was at home he knew about where he was sleeping and on a base he didn’t, but it still got easier to sleep on a mission than off of one. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t relax at home – it was always a relief, getting that call from Miss Pauling or Miss Harris or whoever said it was time to pack his stuff and catch a train.

He’d never asked how well anybody else slept, not during the war. But he’d asked Pyro a few times since he’d invited her in. She’d always said she slept fine and he knew her well enough to know she hadn’t lied.

It was like just asking was the important part.

And that night, he slept fine.

He didn’t see Pyro until after he’d gotten back from a run and was cleaning up breakfast, leaving some coffee in the pot and bread for toast out on the counter. She was in a ragged old shirt and pants, her hair braided, not even glancing at him as she got a mug out and poured some coffee.

“Uh, hey…”

“What the fuck is it.”

“You gotta little tear there.”

“What?”

“Left sleeve.” He shrugged as she turned to inspect it, running her fingers over the small, jagged rip from the middle of the sleeve down to the bottom.

“Dammit.” She sighed. “I hate buying clothes.”

“What, you need – you think you need a new shirt? You’re gonna get rid of this one jus’ ’cause it’s got a rip?”

“Yeah.”

“You – okay, you get a new shirt on, you gimme that one. Jus’ gimme it here, c’mon.”

It took him five minutes to get the sewing kit. Twenty minutes after that, it wasn’t good as new but nearly there. He handed Pyro her shirt back with a smile and she turned it around in her hands to inspect his handiwork.

“You learned how to do this in Home Ec?”

“Basic training.” He held back a laugh at her confused, scrunched-up face. “Well, c’mon, think about it a minute. You’re out there somewhere, out in the jungle or the countryside or wherever, you get somethin’ ripped, there ain’t no tailor ’round there for you t’just get ’em t’mend it up. You gotta learn how t’take care of your own gear, an’ your own uniform. So you gotta learn how t’sew.”

She nodded.

“Gotta learn t’keep your toenails all neat, too.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No way am I shittin’ you.” She sat down across from him, draping her shirt over the chair and wrapping her hands around a steaming cup of coffee. “You got all those marches, you got all that runnin’, you’re on your feet like nineteen hours a day some days in basic, maybe even twenty, you don’t want anythin’ t’happen t’your feet. Keep your nails all neat, they won’t give you any trouble. How t’manage t’not get a blister in new boots. Y’know. Stuff like that.”

“Yeah.” Pyro took a long sip. “And you’re always up on your feet all the time. You always ran hard.”

“Still do.”

“Yeah.”

He glanced at the sink, down the hallway towards their bedrooms, back to Pyro, down at the sewing kit he needed to put away. “Oh, an’, uh, if you got anythin’ else that needs some work, maybe a button’s off or somethin’, lemme know an’ I’ll get it patched up.”

She nodded slowly. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

“Great. See you later,” he said, already halfway to his room.

“Later,” she called out. 

She wasn’t home for dinner that night and he ate alone again. But the night after that, they ate together – and the night after that, and the one after that, too.


	30. Chapter 30

30.

When she told him she still hadn’t managed to get out there, even after all the fuss she’d made about it, once they finally made it there he wouldn’t let up about how she hadn’t gotten to the zoo yet. After she pointed out he hadn’t, either, he just glared at her.

“That’s different, an’ you know it. I live here, I don’t need t’worry ’bout getting’ t’see all the tourist stuff, it’s just here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“Yeah, and you always make it out to the art museums, you keep going to the Academy of Sciences, you took me to Telegraph Hill just to be fucking sure I saw the tower and the parrots. It’s your goddamn city, you better know what the fuck there is to see in it.”

“Okay, then, what should –”

“Hang on, they’re feeding the baby.” As soon as she’d heard about it, just reading about it as they looked over a little map, the giraffe feeding was the thing she’d wanted to see most of everything in the zoo. And while the keepers fed the little herd, Scout knew there wasn’t anything he could do but wait for them to be done. There were plenty of other people around and most of the little kids were pointing or shouting, but with everything going on around her, Pyro just stayed staring at the giraffes, hands deep in her pockets, with a little smile on her face.

Scout had to admit their tongues were pretty neat. It was funny the way the baby wrapped a tongue that looked like an octopus tentacle around the zookeeper’s wrist and wouldn’t let go.

When it was over and Pyro looked at him, he didn’t wait to ask, “So what else should I make sure t’see?”

“I don’t know. Whatever the fuck you’ve been meaning to see. All the stuff people keep talking about. The Sutro baths, shit like that – they’re open to the public, right?”

“Yeah, we could go see ’em tonight, they ain’t roped off or nothin’. That’s what you got on top’a your list? Some old bricks down at th’end a’the city? There’s way more fun stuff we could go see than just pokin’ around those. There’s gotta be; I mean, I ain’t been yet but th’Mechanical Museum’s supposed t’be great, there’s what’s left over from that World’s Fair from way back when out at the Marina. You ain’t tellin’ me you ain’t seen that yet? There’s more stuff t’see than just some bricks at the end of the city, is all I gotta say, even the buffalo in the park are more fun’n that.”

“What buffalo?”

“Y’know, I ain’t sure they’re buffalo. They could be bison – y’know, we oughta ask someone here; there’s anyplace t’find out, it’d be here.”

They finally got to the bison paddock around dusk, as night was starting to come in through Golden Gate Park and sunset was finally disappearing into the ocean. It was hard to pick the animals out until they moved – just enough to be noticed, just enough movement to make them stand out from the dark all around them, all going nowhere in no hurry. Scout hadn’t seen anything lumber like that - actually need the word lumber - since the last time he’d seen Heavy try moving through a desert base on a hot day when he wasn’t chasing after a BLU, going all slow and careful and moving his feet all gently.

Scout climbed up on the fence to get a better look at them in what light was left. Pyro tried to join him but couldn’t manage it, so he jumped down instead and they kept on walking. 

By the time they got to the Japanese Tea Garden the place was closed for the night, so they came back a couple of days later, first thing in the morning, to skip all the summer tourists and get the koi all to themselves. There wasn’t any fighting the tourists a week later on the Fourth of July, because there wasn’t any point in trying, not since Chrissy Airfield shut down, and even then there’d always been too many out-of-town guests. It hadn’t been much better than how Mission Dolores Park was now. Not that Pyro could have cared one way or another, because once the show started she didn’t give two shits about anything but the fireworks. Nothing else touched her; not the people shouting around them, not the kids running with sparklers tracing words in the air, not the booms and cracks from the sky or anything – she didn’t even move, except to blink and breathe. Half the show Scout watched the fireworks and the other half he watched Pyro. It was almost like how she’d looked in front of the fireplace, except a lot happier, not hunching in and keeping her arms wrapped around her knees. This time she was leaning back, smiling, just taking in as much of everything that she could – she looked happy the way little kids did. She watched the fireworks with her eyes wide open like she was six years old and looked happier to be there than anywhere else in the world. She stayed sitting a while after it was over, the same way she’d done with the fire, and Scout waited until she got back inside herself and they were almost alone to ask, “You ready t’head home?”

“Yeah,” she coughed, then swallowed and said again, “yeah.”

They didn’t go right home, cutting around the back of Twin Peaks to stay outside longer, stretch out the night as much as they could, and even ran out to the edge, to the lookout point. The little mountains were so dark next to the rest of the city they stopped to take it all in, the whole city as bright as the fireworks show had been.

“Freakin’ gorgeous.”

Pyro laughed. “You think this is pretty, you should see Los Angeles.” There wasn’t enough light near them to really see her face, and Scout could still see she wasn’t smiling. She ran a hand over her hair, sighed and said, “It’s a nice-enough looking city, but it only gets really pretty when it rains or at night. Night’s better, you get up out into the hills and look out at everything, and if it’s a windy night and the smog’s gone it’s nothing but light in the valley spread out the whole way. You can see where San Francisco stops from here, there’s the ocean and the Bay, you can see the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge from here. Los Angeles doesn’t stop like that. It keeps going, and if you see it during the day it’s fucking depressing if you stop and think about it, but if you see it at night it’s like you’re in a movie, or watching one from the inside.”

“Yeah. I might like it at night, yeah. It get hot in summer?”

“Oh, fuck yeah, it’s why you’ve got to get out to the hills if you want to see it.” She turned to look at him, ran a hand over her hair again. “What’s Boston like at night?”

“It ain’t nothin’ like this, an’ it ain’t nothin’ like what you’re sayin’ LA is like. It ain’t this bright, see out there, ’round the Sunset, see th’neighborhood right where we’re at? More like this an’ that than downtown, or North Beach out there, you got bits of the city like that. Most of it ain’t that bright, most of it ain’t big enough t’get that bright. You get it pretty dark out in the streets where people live. An’ you better believe it gets hot in summer, oh it gets hot. Playin’ in the bathtub ’cause it’s the coolest spot in the whole freakin’ house, yeah, that kinda hot. Man, thank God it never gets that hot here. Hey, it – does it ever get that hot in China? Like, LA hot?”

Scout watched her out of the corners of his eyes, not looking right at her as she looked out over the city, blinked and shrugged. “Sometimes in the south. But I think it gets more like Boston hot.”

“Not like San Francisco hot.”

“Oh, fuck no.”

“There ain’t no gettin’ away from that heat. But here in the city, you – it gets different.”

“It’s a heat you can live with.” She looked out over the city, and smiled. “I like living in a city anyway.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The breezes blowing in from the city smelled a little like smoke and a little like the ocean. When they shifted and started coming from the mountains behind them, the air smelled like the grasses that grew at the edges of the city, in the wild spots in the parks where nobody trimmed the lawns. Scout took a deep breath of it, filled himself up with it, and started to finish up going on home. Sleeping with the window open never did much in Boston, mostly just kept the room from getting stuffy. In San Francisco, sleeping with the windows open meant fresh, cool air the whole night through, and if there was summer fog it meant waking up to a little bit of dew clinging on the inside of the windowpanes. Sometimes the city remembered it was summer, and sometimes it thought July really meant February, like it’d forgotten it was in America and thought it was in Australia instead. But that wasn’t something to complain about, not when it kept most of the tourists sticking to the big attractions and leaving Scout and Pyro well enough alone – them, and the parts of the city that the people who lived there actually lived in.


	31. Chapter 31

31.

They managed to avoid most of the crowds and almost all the pressure of being out in public through the summer, at least until Scout finally decided enough was enough. It was time to get around to it, there wasn’t a single good reason to not have done it so he might as well go ahead – one Sunday morning in August he and Pyro loaded themselves onto a boat heading out to Alcatraz. He’d bought the tickets two days before, for the earliest time he could, and there were still almost thirty other tourists crammed inside the ferry with them. It was one of San Francisco’s winter-summer days, with so much fog that even out on the fo’c’sle Scout couldn’t see Alcatraz, just its lighthouse. Pyro was sitting inside hunched up to keep warm, and only slid her hands out of her sweatshirt’s pockets to wrap them around the Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate he handed her, then scooted over to let him sit down.

“You coulda filled the pouch with coffee.”

“And then I’d be drinking water that tastes like old, weak coffee for the next three months.” She took a deep sniff of the hot chocolate and sighed. “Look, I – you want mine?”

“Yeah? You sure?”

“Pretty fucking sure.”

He only got through half of hers by the time they got to the island. It hadn’t been a long or bumpy ride but some people were still stumbling around looking a little sick. Because they had to stick together, Scout waited for everyone else to get their land legs back after less than a half-hour on the water, drinking the last of Pyro’s hot chocolate. He could barely see San Francisco from here, just some of the lights from downtown and around Fisherman’s Wharf, and couldn’t see any of the sky – everything turned into fog just a little bit above the water, even the top of the prison itself where the lighthouse flickered. It was all the same colors everywhere, and with sound of the boat sailing away back to the city and the wind blowing cold with the smell of the ocean, it almost let him think he was back in Boston at the docks.

There wasn’t any skipping the boring orientation speech - stay with the group don’t wander off keep your hands to yourself, the same thing everywhere. He only started listening when the guide started talking about Alcatraz itself. The word was Spanish for pelican and plenty of seabirds lived on the island, with seagulls nesting pretty much all wherever they wanted.  
  
“Hey, when d’we go inside?” Scout yelled from the back.

“Soon enough!” She called back to him. Pyro punched him on the arm.

“Shut the fuck up, this is interesting.” He did, muttering something about her parents quiet enough only she could hear him. It got him another punch, but it was worth it.

He hated admitting she was right – it turned out what the tour guide had to say was worth a listen. All Scout thought he’d wanted to see was the cells; if it really was as bad as all the movies and books made it out to be, but it turned out that people besides the inmates had lived here too. It made sense, when he thought about it, how there’d have to have been people around to take care of them. The guide explained that since they couldn’t keep going back and forth every day, the guards, staff and all their families lived on Alcatraz. The kids got ferried off to school and people did their grocery shopping and other errands in the city, but the island was where they’d come to sleep at night.

“Was anyone born here?” One little kid asked.

“A few,” she said. “They had a hospital right here, so they didn’t even have to worry about getting into the city in time for anything. Like I said, this was where they all lived – they even planted gardens here. You don’t plant a garden where you’re not living.”

“What are they in there?”

“The plants? All sorts of things. Roses, agave, artichoke, fuchsias, lots of native plants. I don’t know them all, but there’s plenty of books in the gift shop about them. Some of the inmates even worked in the gardens. It was supposed to be a special privilege for really top-notch good behavior. Who was it that asked about the prison? It’s right up ahead.” She kept talking, leading everyone into inside, but Scout and Pyro stayed back, dawdling at the flowerbeds.

“You got any idea what they are?” She shook her head. “Betcha Spy’d know. Or Soldier – man, there’s no way Soldier wouldn’t know.”

“Fuck yeah, he’d know. Remember how that one time he spent two days talking to Engie about orchards and groundcover?”

“Yeah. That always came outta nowhere for him. Nothin’, nothin’, bam, lecture on how t’prune tomatoes t’get the most fruit.”

“You had to ask him about it. You had to know he was a gardener.”

“It’d been at his hospital, right? That one in Iowa?”

“Yeah, where he stayed when he got back from Poland.”

Scout shook his head as they started to jog back to join up with the group. “Y’know he woulda like it here.”

“He’d fucking love it here. Military base, maximum-security prison, he’d hide out to sleep here just to say he had. It’d be a fucking vacation for him. He’d say it’s – it’s some goddamn oasis of sensibility and order in an ocean of hemp-clad patchouli-scented hippies what don’t know right from wrong.”

“Somethin’ like that.”

The corridors between the cell blocks all had names like Broadway and Park Avenue, Sunrise Alley and Sunset Strip. From the top two levels off Sunset Strip the prisoners could have seen San Francisco shining at night, just a mile and a half away. Their guide said it wasn’t a relief to get a cell there, but a reminder of how far away they were from the rest of the world.

“There.” Pyro pointed to a corner. “That’s where I’d come in. If I wasn’t covering Engie’s ass or a teleporter exit, I’d stay up on the top levels. He’d be – yeah, him and Sniper would be out in the yard.”

“Yeah, definitely – settin’ up teleporters inside first, of course –”

“Of course.”

“– But yeah, plenty a’great snipin’ perches outside, pick off anyone runnin’ in or out. Man, Spy’d love this.”

“It’d be his goddamn dream. He wouldn’t even need that fucking cloak.”

“Demo’d have fun no matter where he was. I’d try t’stay inside, though. Not a whole lotta headroom, lotsa tight turns, but that’d be okay. There’s more’n enough room t’get up close an’personal t’someone. Chase ’em down t’the end of a block, corner ’em an’ finish off their sorry ass.”

“Sneak up on them, let my flamethrower rip, finish them off with an axe. Or a shotgun, if I had to, but in a place like this I’d want to stay quiet.”

“Yeah, that ain’t me.”

“You never gave a shit about sneaking up on anyone. You always wanted everyone to know where you were.”

“I let ’em know where I’m at, it gets ’em t’come runnin’.”

The fog had started burning off when they got back outside, enough for Scout to make out the city’s silhouette from up at the lighthouse. By the time the tour was over, back through the kitchen and library, past the little visiting cells and the preserved rubble from the occupation, there was another ferry moored at the dock, emptying out before filling up to get them back to the city. Even though the place was always stuffed with tourists no matter the weather, it was still close enough to the dock and the food good enough, that after Pyro got her feet back under her and stopped wobbling around they headed over for an early lunch at the sourdough bakery off Fisherman’s Wharf. And even though the place had a full-scale restaurant that came complete with an oyster bar, it wasn’t his birthday and it wasn’t Christmas, so he and Pyro got in line at the cafeteria like everyone else.

“Look,” he said, ripping off a piece of the bread bowl to dip into his tomato soup, “maybe it’s true, maybe it is all everybody says an’ more, an’ I don’t care. Place like this anythin’ could be goin’ into the chowder.”

“You’re that fucking worried about how authentic it is?”

“I ain’t worried. I know they ain’t gonna get it right, so I ain’t worried.”

More sunshine filtered through the clouds and glinted off the water as they ran along the Bay, past Fort Mason and the Marina out to the Palace of Fine Arts. They slowed down to walk through the Palace and really take in the sights, and Pyro found a little concrete jetty to scoot as close to the water – and the goldfish and birds – as she could, with Scout standing back to look at the way the columns caught the light differently from the pond.

“You wanna check out the museum?”

She shook her head. “Maybe when it’s raining, but it’s too fucking nice out today.”

When they got there, it still felt weird to know he could just head up into the Presidio and not need to sneak, hide or think of a quick excuse for why Pyro was there with him. There hadn’t been any military around for years now, for the first time since it’d begun, all the way back before San Francisco was even a city. He and Pyro stuck to the middle of the roads, running past houses anyone could buy if they had an extra few million dollars lying around no matter where they were on anybody’s chain of command, past buildings that used to be barracks that’d been turned into art galleries. They turned around at the officer’s club and looped up through the cemetery, dashing back into the city past the hospital where he’d had his head stitched up, just a few years back.

By the time they got out to the Legion of Honor the fog was totally gone, the whole sky the same fierce California blue as the bay and open ocean. They couldn’t see all the way out to Mount Diablo or the Farallones, but they could see Alcatraz just fine. It was different looking out and knowing he’d been there – not only hours ago, but that he’d explored it, gotten to know it even if it was only for a couple-few hours. Scout couldn’t say he didn’t know it anymore, and that made him smile.

They were still out hours later, running up Clement as the sun set and the lights of the city started coming on, turning San Francisco into something from the future, or Australia. Not too long after they finished dinner at Q where Scout finally tried the garlic fries, he was browsing the shelves of cognac at the BevMo on Geary when Pyro came over with a six-pack of Mexican beer. “Hey, I’m just gonna get this, so if you want to pick up something now’s the time.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.”

“That all you’re gettin’?”

“Ah, yeah. Yeah, it is.” She nodded, and he was about to say more when she said, “I don’t like to drink a lot because alcohol always hits me hard. It doesn’t matter how much water I’ve been drinking, or how much I’ve eaten. I have more than four beers and I’m fucking done for the night. I’ve tried and I can’t handle it, it never works for me, so I don’t drink a lot. I’m not even going to fucking try to finish these off in less than two days. I’m going to have two tonight, maybe three, and the rest are all yours.”

“Oh.” 

She put the pack down onto the belt and handed over a ten, pocketing the change, not bothering to look the clerk in the eye when she bagged up the beer. 

“Yeah, sure. You need some help finishin’ off some beer, yeah, I’m always happy t’lend a hand.”

They didn’t walk far to find a place to sit and drink, just a couple of blocks over and up to a spot on the grass where they could see the Columbarium. Right by the fence behind the fields of the little park, and clinked bottles before drinking. It was far enough from Geary and Arguello that they couldn’t hear the traffic and there weren’t any cars driving down the street, leaving them to drink alone. The beer was dark and not too sweet, and it went down smooth, like all the edges had been filed off. Scout took a long drink, and another, and started a second bottle while Pyro was still on her first. 

“Hey, uh, thanks. For makin’ me get out there.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No, I mean it. If you hadn’t been proddin’ me t’get back up on my feet an’ start doin’ stuff – I’d be up an’ runnin’ by now even if you hadn’t been there, it ain’t that – I don’t think I woulda gotten out t’Alcatraz if you hadn’t been askin’ me ’bout that. Gettin’ me t’get out there. An’ I been sayin’ for ages I’d get out there sometime, an’ I ain’t never had a good reason, not ’till you. So, thanks.”

“Like I said, you’re welcome.”

“No worries.” 

She punched him on the arm and stuck her empty bottle back into its spot in the caddy, pulling out another one. “Thank you for taking me. I had a great time out there today.”

“Yeah, I could tell.” He laughed when she hit him again. “C’mon, you don’t think I’d seriously head out there an’ not take you? I’d freakin’ take someone, you can’t head out t’someplace like Alcatraz and not bring somebody, I’da called up Mike or Ben or someone jus’ t’make sure I’d be goin’ with someone t’talk to. Y’know, that’s pretty much the worst thing, not talkin’ t’anyone. No matter how deep into shit you get, you got someone t’talk to, you come out all right.”

“You come out smelling like fucking roses.”

“Maybe if you do it right. But I mean, I really mean it, jus’ talkin’ – figurin’ out how we woulda taken down BLU in there, that’s great, but I mean more like, when – okay, don’t punch me for this, okay? When you gotta see somethin’ burn. Or when I need someone t’pull me away from a fight; an’ I totally woulda won, we both know I woulda, but I don’t think I woulda gotten out safe if you hadn’t stepped in. Jus’ talkin’ like that. When you know somethin’ ’bout somebody an’ it’s okay t’know an’ you can go ahead an’ talk to them.” 

“Yeah, I know what you mean. When nobody’s bullshitting you how you need to feel, or not feel, like it’s not my fucking head to live in.”

“You got any idea how good it feels t’hear that?” Scout laughed, finished off his beer and raised the empty to the sky. “T’hear someone knows what the hell I’m talkin’ ’bout over here? I got so many people I can’t say a freakin’ word to – not one single freakin’ word! – an’ I got phone numbers for pretty much everyone else, but right here. I mean right here, you an’ me.” Pyro opened up a second beer, then a third for him. “Christ, yeah, you get it, you’re hearin’ me. You an’ me here, you an’ me –”

He looked at her. It was Pyro, sitting on the grass, halfway done with her second beer of the night. She was laughing, smiling with her whole face all the way to her eyes, the light from the streetlamp shining off her hair, and he looked again. There wasn’t anything different in her, except all of a sudden, it was everything. And he didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it until just then, because he couldn’t see anything else.

“Hey. Uh, look, jus’ – don’t – don’t take this the wrong way or nothin’, but…I’d really like t’kiss you right now.”

Pyro stopped laughing, stopped smiling. She turned to look him in the eye, to blink, and she took a deep breath.

“Good.” 

Scout’s heart thumped. 

“Because I want you to kiss me, too.”

So he did.

Her lips were soft on his, smooth at one edge, and when she opened them, it tasted like the beer they’d both been drinking. Not in a bad way. He pulled back, put his bottle back into the caddy and so did she, and then they went back to kissing. Her breath was warm on his cheek, his tongue slid against hers, and they pulled back when a passing car nearly blinded them with its headlights.

They watched it drive off, looked at each other, and laughed, leaning in to kiss again. Scout slid his hands up her neck and cupped her cheeks, pulling her in gently, finally touching that fine black hair.

“Hey, Pyro?”

“Yeah?”

“Race you home.”

It wasn’t even a contest, him up on his feet and grabbing the beer and tearing up the hill with Pyro on his heels – he couldn’t ever remember running that fast, he was barely up before he was home, and Pyro was just behind him, swearing and shouting the whole way. They were barely inside when she grabbed him and kissed him again, pressed up against the wall, and he leaned into it, letting her hold him there. He moaned and she pushed harder, her hands on the sides of his face, her whole body against him. Scout slid his tongue into her mouth, let her in, and laughed when she ran her tongue over his teeth.

“Yeah,” he panted out, “you tried that a couple years ago, you wouldn’t be havin’ such a good time.” She laughed and he joined her, pushing away gently. They pulled off their shoes, their socks, Scout fumbled out of his shirt as Pyro dropped her Camelbak by the door. She got her shirt off and her bra, he tossed his boxers next to her briefs, and when he got to the bedroom – after dashing to the bathroom to get some fresh condoms – she was undoing her braid. 

Scout realized he’d never seen her with her hair down. Not even after a shower.

He put the condoms on the nightstand and turned on the lamp. She turned off the light and he walked over where she was standing wearing nothing and wearing it so well. Naked like this he was a little taller than her, more than usual; she usually had boots on. He stepped closer, wiggled his toes over hers, toes about the same size, and she pushed off to kiss him again. Scout slid his hands up her arms, both his hands telling him such different things and coming to rest back on her face.

One of his hands slid over her soft cheek to her hair. He let out a sigh – it was thick, and soft in his hands. It was probably the most beautiful part of her.

She pulled him away from her and he opened his eyes to look into hers, bright and smiling. Then she walked him backwards and pushed him down onto the bed. He sat, and he got a good look at her – a look he’d have killed for, decades ago, a naked woman standing in front of him, but now it wasn’t just any woman. It was Pyro. She stood there, flushed and breathing hard. “You need some water?”

“No, I’m fine.” She licked dry lips. “A little.”

He heard her get herself a drink from the kitchen while he got the bed ready, and was pulling out a condom packet when she got back. “Y– you still on for this? ’Cause if you ain’t, if you gotta –”

“Scout, I am so fucking on for this.” She slid a hand up his leg to his hip, her fingers circling around his tattoo.

They got the condom rolled down onto his dick, Pyro straddling him up on her knees. He slid his hands up on her hips, pulling her gently closer. She reached down and wrapped a hand around his cock, held him in place, and slid home.

Scout blinked up at her. Pyro’s eyelids fluttered and she opened them, smiled down at Scout.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

He thrust up, and his whole body lit on fire. She made some sound from deep inside, from where he was, and as he thrust she took his right hand in her left, slid it up her body, over her skin with its slick, smooth whorls and waves to come to rest on top of her left tit. Then she pressed his hand down onto her. “Come on, like this.”

“You like that?”

“You can go harder. I like the pressure, yeah, that– that feels good.” He went lightly at first, to get to know that smooth skin under his hand, and he brushed his thumb over the dark patch that was the remnant of a nipple, before squeezing harder and thrusting up again. She moaned and pressed down, pulled up when he slid back. They moved together gently, hard, and Scout wrapped his arms around Pyro to pull himself up as best he could. He kissed her, one hand on the dips and creases and smooth ridges up and down her back, the other in that thick, soft hair. She wrapped her arms around him, and they kissed and kissed, fucking together beautifully. She hissed and pushed him down, and he knew what was coming, knew what to do. He lay back and reached for that little spot right below the wild dark hair, right to that little button where he could feel his cock thrust into her, harder and harder the closer she got. Scout fucked like he meant it, worked his fingers, and he felt her clench around him hard. Scout bit his lip and let go. Pyro moaned, he whimpered, and she collapsed, rolling to lie beside him.

It took them a few minutes to catch their breath. Scout pulled off the condom and knotted it, tossed it over the side of the bed to get later. Pyro rolled onto her side, then flopped onto her back.

“Fuck.”

He looked over at her. “What, again?”

She looked at him, scrunched up her face, and they both burst out laughing.

Scout turned onto his side and reached out to run a hand over her cheek, a fingertip down over the slick, discolored tissue, to catch a strand of hair and tuck it over her ragged ear as best he could.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” She smiled.

“Stay here?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She moved in closer, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her in close beside him.

Scout woke to a Monday morning with sunlight streaming through the blinds and his room smelling like sex. He propped himself up on one elbow to look over at the reason why. The light on her skin was so clean it almost could be coming from inside her. He smiled and got up, threw away the condom, and dipped into the bathroom to take a piss, wash his face and take a good look at his reflection. Just because he couldn’t see anything different didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to find.

Pyro was still asleep when he got back. He sat beside her and gently touched her shoulder. She grumbled something and shook him off, and he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Hey. Hey, Pyro, c’mon.”

“Fuck off.”

“What d’you want for breakfast?” He kissed her again. “I got eggs, cereal. You want pancakes? I could make you pancakes. I got bacon in the freezer, you want some’a that.”

Pyro burrowed her face into her pillow. “Pancakes sound good.”

“Pancakes it is.”

So in that Monday morning light, Scout made pancakes. He measured all the flour carefully, threw in more butter than he needed, and a dash of the spices he’d made Pyro carry home. They filled the house with a sweet, clean smell that made the light brighter, and when Pyro sat at the table, hair up in a messier braid than usual, he served her first. She drizzled a little syrup over them, he handed her a mug of coffee so they could clink their cups together, sipping and settling into breakfast.

“I’ll move my stuff over today.”

Scout swallowed down a warm bite of pancake, followed with a dash of coffee. “I’ll help.”

Pyro hadn’t let him into her room since she’d moved in. He’d never even gotten a glimpse of it after that and almost expected there to be huge piles of rags and dirty footprints all over even though she’d run the vacuum a few times and even bothered to ask him which symbols meant which settings. It was messier than it’d been before she’d started sleeping there, but there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff to make mess. All the things she had on the dresser and desk, all her clothes piled in the closet, all three pairs of shoes, a few hats he recognized and a couple he didn’t – pretty much everything she had to her name looked like it could fit into two suitcases and her backpack. The fact that it did made moving everything easier, even if it was just going right next door. Scout had already cleared out a few drawers in a dresser, some space on the closet floor, and they got everything put away in a half-hour.

“I keep my suitcases out in the garage, but you wanna keep yours in the house, I got a little space under the bed you’d –”

“How’s this going to work?”

“Uh, what?” 

Pyro stood by the door, arms crossed over her chest, facing away and looking at him out of the corners of her eyes. 

“How’s what gonna work? Us sleepin’ together?”

“Yeah.” She turned her head to face him. “Us. Together. We’re not just sharing the house anymore, we’re sharing a goddamn bed. How’s this going to be different from yesterday?”

“How’s what gonna be different? Everythin’? You’re askin’ how everythin’s gonna be different.”

“No, you asshole. I mean, the two of us. How we’re together. How are we going to be different? The – things like, stuff like the fucking toilet paper. I mean – which side of the bed’s yours?” He stared, and she shook her head, pointed with a loose hand. “I slept over there last night but I could’ve slept anywhere. And I know if we’re sleeping there tonight you’ve got your side and I’ll get mine. I want to get that out of the way as soon as fucking possible, so which side’s yours?”

Scout walked around and sat down on the righthand side, then turned to look at her. “You happy now?”

“Happier.” She walked to sit on the left side.

“Y’know it don’t have t’be too different.” He moved over close enough to put a hand on hers and give it a squeeze, remind her he was there. “We’re sleepin’ together, an’ yeah, that’s a whole world a’difference there. But the rest of it, stuff like the toilet paper, we know how toilet paper works.” She still didn’t say anything. “Sharin’ a bed ain’t like sharin’ a house. It ain’t like sharin’ a room, either. Sharin’ a room means you don’t got a choice ’bout things, you ain’t got a say in how it’s goin’. But sharin’ a bed’s closer t’sharin’ a house than sharin’ a room. You gotta choose who you want in your house, you gotta make sure you want ’em in your bed.” He kissed her knuckles, pressed her hand close for a moment to get to know the feeling on his lips of another part of her. “Y’know I ain’t kickin’ you outta my house. No way are you leavin’ my bed.”

She didn’t turn around. “You mean that?”

“You better fuckin’ believe I do.”

That finally got her to smile and roll over to pull him in for a kiss.

“We should probably go clean up my room.”

“Your old room.”

Even though she’d vacuumed sometimes, Scout could tell she’d never bothered to dust and knew she’d never asked about what she could borrow to clean the walls – something to wipe away what was left of a bug she’d squished onto the wall by the window, for example. It was something to be proud of, sure, but she hadn’t needed to leave it up like a trophy for God knew how long. She’d always taken care of her own laundry, sometimes more than twice a month, and he figured as long as they were putting fresh sheets onto her old bed, it was as good a time as any to show her how to put them on right.

“See, both edges are goin’ in line with each other, y’gotta keep ’em goin’ even like railroad tracks. Goin’ parellel, right. This way it’s easier t’make – you listenin’ t’me?”

“Sure.”

“I know you ain’t. Would’ya just – I ain’t askin’ you t’make the bed every Monday, I’m askin’ you t’pay attention now so if you do gotta make it, or if you wanna, some miracle happens an’ you wanna make the bed, you’ll do it right.”

“Okay, fine. So they’re going parallel to each other.”

“Yeah. C’mere, down here. See, you gotta keep it all smoothed out. See? Tuck it in when it’s all smooth.”

Once the room was back in order, the bed was made, the dresser was dusted and the windows were wiped clean, they ordered pizza. Scout tipped the delivery girl well while Pyro set out the napkins and plates, and got out the big spatula.

She ate faster than she drank, going for her second slice when he was on his first, and he asked her, “So when’d you start growin’ out your hair?”

“What? Oh, in China.” She slid the pizza onto her plate, lifted it up for a bite, and kept going after she’d chewed and swallowed, slowly looking up from her lunch to look him in the eye. “I had my electric razor with me when I went and I thought I’d keep on trimming it, but I forgot to check if the outlets were the same over there. They’re diagonal, if you can fucking believe that. So I figured it was easier to let my hair grow out than try to find a converter plug or something. After a while it got long enough to do something with and now I just don’t care. I keep thinking if I went back to keeping it short that’d be something else to waste time on. It’s like I can either keep it short all the time or let it stay long.”

“Good. I mean, it’s good you – it looks good long.”

Pyro stopped, pizza halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“Yeah. I mean it, your hair looks nice this way. So you grew it out in China, you learned t’braid it there too?”

“No, when I was six.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, one of the nurses said it’d be good PT for my hands. But I started keeping it short a while before the war, and then I just trimmed everything down all the time, so I didn’t start braiding it again until I had enough for it.”

“Right.”

He was pretty sure she waited until he was halfway through his second slice before she asked, “So when did you get that tattoo?”

“Um.” Scout swallowed, gulping some water to get the crust down faster. “Jus’ four years ago.”

“Really new.”

“Newer’n your hair.”

She laughed. “Why a rabbit?”

Scout knew he could say something about all the jokes about Catholics and big families he’d heard through his whole life, or something about being bored or wanting something after a bad break-up; anything he could think of and she’d accept it. But the way she’d asked, totally open when she’d been about to close down – he knew how she looked when she was about to close down and she’d amost been there – she just wanted to know, and it didn’t feel right to lie or tell her anything but the truth.

“’Cause I run like one. And ’cause I caught one.”

There was more to it than that, but that was enough of it. 

“Yeah, you totally fucking did. We were at Harvest, right?”

“Uh-huh, Harvest.” He tore off another bite of pizza, talking around it. “You remember that? What Spy made outta it?”

“Not really. But I remember you wanted to let it go after you came back with it. You hadn’t stopped to think about what you’d do with it after you’d caught it.”

“No, I didn’t. But I didn’t think we’d do anythin’ with it – I’d thought I’d let it go, I’d shown everyone I caught one by runnin’ it down, catch-an’-release. Then Hardhat said I oughta be the one t’put dinner on the table for once an’ it seemed like somethin’ t’really be proud of, not just catchin’ it.”

“I don’t really remember that. Just – I remember how you looked when you came back. I almost never saw you look that fucking tired, you had so much dust sticking to the sweat that was dripping off your face and you looked so fucking happy.” Scout smiled and she laughed. “And you didn’t shut up about catching it for almost a month.”

He shrugged. “Hey, it wasn’t like I coulda gone braggin’ t’my brothers about it. Jus’ a little bit, but no way they woulda believed me.”

“Too bad for them. They missed some good stories.”

It took him a minute to get a smile onto his face. “Yeah, they – they really did.”


	32. Chapter 32

32.

The best part of sleeping with Pyro was waking up next to her. Any time he woke up, rolling over or just opening his eyes and seeing her in bed. How she looked different in the light or in the dark. Scooting across the sheets, sticking his nose in her hair all splayed out over the pillow and taking in a deep sniff of it, of her hair’s own smell mixed together with shampoo. Leaning over and giving her a kiss on her cheek, her nose, her chin. Brushing his hand through her hair or over her skin, letting himself linger – her letting him, too. She didn’t usually let him, not if they weren’t fucking, and if they were he was thinking about everything, not one thing. Waking up next to her when she was asleep or just waking, he could take in a little bit at a time, one more thing about her.

Sometimes he woke up and she wasn’t there, like one morning about three weeks after their first together. The last time he’d woken up alone, it was a week into sleeping together, and she’d left a note that said she went for a walk before the fog burned off instead of going back to sleep. This time, she was in the kitchen, making coffee and toast.

He gave her a kiss on the cheek before pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“You woke me up last night,” Pyro said.

“Sorry?” Scout didn’t look up from inhaling the bitter steam.

“Last night. You were yelling for Medic. And you woke me up.”

“What? Oh, yeah. I thought I’d said – I talk in my sleep sometimes. Sorry.”

“I’m happy you’re sorry, but you still woke me up.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“So I woke you up. An’ what else?”

“You woke me up at two in the goddamn morning.”

He stared at her. “An’ I’m sorry I woke you up so early. What’d I say?”

“You yelled for Medic and Engineer and then me, then you started talking and mumbling for fifteen fucking minutes, and after that I couldn’t fucking fall back to sleep because I kept waiting for you to say something else.”

Scout sat down and took a long drink of coffee. She always made it nice and strong. “Yeah, an’ it’s a cryin’ shame you didn’t get enough sleep last night. You tellin’ me you never get nightmares?”

“No, I don’t and even if I did I don’t think I’d be waking people up in the middle of the fucking night –”

“You just said two in the morning.”

“Fine, two in the fucking morning.”

“An’ now what?” 

She shrugged. 

“An’ I’m sorry, an’ I’m sorry I didn’t say I talk in my sleep before you started sleepin’ with me, but it’s somethin’ I do, an’ you gotta deal with that if you wanna sleep with me.”

“I have to deal with it?”

“Yeah.”

“You woke me up.”

“Yeah, an’ I’m sorry, an’ it ain’t my fault –”

“What?”

“It ain’t my freakin’ fault I get nightmares so bad I’m cryin’ out for Medic. I just get ’em, I never went askin’ for ’em. I don’t got a way t’get rid of ’em, I just get ’em an’ deal with ’em an’ I ain’t had nobody around t’tell me they woke ’em up in a whole long time. An’ I’m sorry it turned out t’be you. I’m sorry my screamin’ woke you up. But I ain’t sorry I was screamin’.” She shook her head and turned away. “What the crap d’you even wanna hear from me?”

“I don’t fucking know,” she said. “Some fucking – Jesus, I’m too tired for this.”

“Yeah, I’m real sorry t’hear that. I ain’t gonna say I ain’t gonna do it again ’cause we both know I’d be lyin’ an’ –”

“Just fucking quit it.” Pyro left her coffee behind and went back to the bedroom.

“Fine!” He shouted after her. But he didn’t hear her lock the door.

Scout finished his coffee, ate his toast, buttered two more slices the way she liked them, and knocked on the door even though it was unlocked before opening it.

“Your breakfast’s on the table.” He grabbed some clothes from the dresser. “I’m goin’ out for a run.”

“Go right the fuck ahead,” she mumbled.

Scout got back home a few hours later, hungry and still angry but not as bad as he’d been. The kitchen table was clean and the toast was gone, not even tossed into the trash. Pyro was sitting in a chair reading out on the back deck. She didn’t look up when he joined her outside.

They’d had arguments about stuff they hadn’t needed to argue about, before they started sleeping with each other, like Pyro’s hair finding its way onto his pillowcase and his side of the bed, or her tossing her pants on a chair instead of folding them. Little arguments, stuff that got to them because they were already tired or annoyed, nothing that lasted after one of them said they were sorry and then that was that.

“You know I ain’t sorry. For yellin’ at you, sure. But not for wakin’ you up.”

“I know.”

“You got anythin’ else t’say?”

“Not really.”

“Christ, Pyro. Buy some goddamn earplugs if wakin’ up like that’s gonna make you sulk like this.”

“Earplugs.”

“Sure.”

“Fucking earplugs. That’s your big idea for fixing this.”

“Beats not sleepin’ with me.”

He went back inside to make a late lunch, and was sitting down to a sandwich when she stormed out the front door. She got back a few hours later, just as he was starting dinner.

“You hungry?”

She tossed away her backpack and sweatshirt into the bedroom, then flopped down into a chair and didn’t look at him.

“You wanna go out t’market tomorrow, get some fresh fish?”

“I got a pack of earplugs.” He turned around to see her still looking away. “They’re these rubber things, foam rubber, and they’re supposed to do the trick. There were so many goddamn earplugs at the drugstore, maybe three shelves of them, who the fuck knows which one it’s going to take.”

Scout set a slice of frittata in front of her. “No reason you can’t try ’em one at a time ’till you find the one that works.” He sat down, and when she looked at him, he made sure to smile bigger than he felt he could. “Anyway, c’mon, I got my retainers, now you got earplugs, it ain’t so bad havin’ somethin’ like that you gotta wear at night.”

She didn’t really smile at that, not with her mouth, but she started eating. And the next day she kissed him good-morning after he woke her up with a little shake – the earplugs kept him from whispering anything that she could hear – and if he could still kiss her in the morning, he’d take not whispering into her ear.

A week after that, the guys asked him what was new. When he told them, everyone went silent.

Ben asked, “You’re joking, right?”

“Nope.”

“You, and her. Her. Lin? You’re sleeping with her? Really?”

“You think I’d kid you guys ’bout somethin’ like that? Really. I mean, really-really.”

There was another moment of silence that lasted until Jake slapped him on the shoulder and crowed, “Way to smoke that ass!”

“Dude, congratulations.” Steve passed him another beer. “Here’s to you finally getting laid.”

“Hey, I do all right, y’know.”

“We know, we know,” Jake said. “But getting laid like that doesn’t come along every day.”

“Every month,” Chris said with a smirk. “Every year.”

“Guess not.”

“So come on, details.” Ben pushed Steve out of the way to sit next to Scout. “Come on, don’t just leave us like that. How is she?”

“She’s good. Won’t give me head, but y’know, I can live without that if I gotta.” When he’d asked why, she’d told him she wouldn’t because the one time she’d tried it made her think of having a naso-gastric tube down her throat which she hadn’t even been awake for, but thinking about it had been enough to make her puke on the guy. 

“No, I mean –” Ben glanced at Chris, who shrugged.

“You get someone like that in bed, you gotta have something more to say than she’s good.”

“What d’you want me t’say? I ain’t gonna say more’n that, anythin’ more’n that’s our business.”

“You can’t start with something like that and – okay, you can keep the details private if you have to, but you can’t just start with something like that and not give us more,” Jake said.

“Like what? What’s more?”

Steve told him. Scout almost punched him. 

What he ended up saying wasn’t close to what they wanted to hear, but near enough they didn’t hassle him for more. They didn’t ask him about Pyro, anyway, not really. And they hadn’t asked him about what it was like living with her. He knew they didn’t care about waking up next to her, or being able to lean over and kiss her anytime he wanted to. Or the way she’d let him hold her hands when they were out somewhere and looking at something – what it was like to be out with her, look at her and know she was with him, really with him in the ways that mattered.

There wasn’t any reason to tell someone about something they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t be missing anything.

Even if they had wanted to know, there was still a lot he wouldn’t ever have told them. Moving the radio out to the living room and sometimes falling asleep curled up in one of the chairs if her breathing and her being there wasn’t enough to help him get back to sleep. Because even with the earplugs there was still noise in their bedroom. If he had to run through his rosary he’d do that kneeling by the bed if he could stay quiet, out in the living room if he needed to hear himself.

And there was getting to know Pyro and her body, more than one piece at a time. The whole of all of getting to know her body, when for four years he almost hadn’t thought she’d had one, before he knew she was a person underneath that suit and behind that mask – now he did. He knew the sounds she made when he rubbed his thumb over her one nipple, or when he bit down gently on what was left of the other. He hadn’t seen her naked during the war, and he’d learned the suit hadn’t hung loose or baggy, she’d filled it up as best she could. There was a lot of her and a lot of softness on her, more curves and fat than any other woman he’d ever been with, and Scout liked he didn’t need to squeeze to feel muscle underneath that. Just a little layer of flesh over everything to smooth it out, something soft for him to hold onto. His hands on her hips to hold her down while he thrust up, or around her shoulders to pull himself close enough to kiss while he was deep in her – she’d thrust back against him and rub her slick cheek against his face, and make so many little sounds that shot all the way through him, everywhere they touched was so warm. Fucking her was still so new and he didn’t ever want that to change, he never wanted it to feel ordinary – he knew it couldn’t when it was her.

Scout pulled himself up by her shoulders and rocked his hips, and she wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed herself tight around his cock, kissed him hard – he mumbled through the kiss, “Pyro, god, Pyro, c’mon, c’mere, oh god, yeah, there – ” she moaned and he said, “God, so beautiful, you’re so – ”

That was all he had time for before Pyro pulled back and he had just enough time to realize when she punched him.

“Jesus! Pyro –”

“You motherfucker,” she hissed. “You motherfucking bastard.”

He pressed both hands up against his face, blinked his uninjured eye. “Pyro, what the hell –”

She rolled off him, cold air hitting his dick like one of her sledgehammers. “Don’t. Don’t fucking talk, don’t even fucking think it, just shut the fuck up – fuck you, Scout, fuck you.”

“You gonna goddamn tell me what –”

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll make you fucking wish you did. Fuck you, just fuck you, fuck off. Fuck!” She yanked the drawer open almost hard enough to pull it all the way out of the dresser, grabbed some clothes. “You don’t fucking get to say that, you don’t fucking say that, you fucking fuck, don’t fucking think – there’s nothing you can fucking say, don’t fucking open your fucking mouth, just fucking shut it.” He did as she pulled the pajama pants on. “I’m going to sleep in my old room.”

“Pyro, why’re –” But she was already out the door. He jumped up and tried following her, but she slammed the door to her old room before he could get anywhere. “Pyro, would you just fuckin’ tell me – all I did was –”

All he’d done was say –

“Oh, fuck.”

Scout leaned against the wall, head in his hand, before he went to the bathroom, locked the door, turned on the light. He pulled the condom off his half-limp dick, still a little bit interested even after the punch and everything she’d said, and took a cold shower instead of jerking off the rest of the way. He’d be sporting a pretty damn good shiner he wouldn’t be able to just shoot away with his pistol in the morning. Their bed was still warm and Pyro’s half of the sheets still smelled like her. He curled up in a chair out to the living room with the radio going because he knew wouldn’t be worth it to try sleeping alone in there.

When he woke up, there was a woman singing on the radio, something French that Spy and maybe Sniper would’ve known what she was singing about – love or birds or something that made her too happy to be sad. The DJ interrupted right after she finished, saying something about the weather across the Bay and what they could expect of all the UC Berkely students during the week, and Scout finally got up and turned it off two songs after that.

He dug through the cabinets for the last of the cornmeal he was sure was hiding back there, into the back of the freezer for the bacon. He set the coffee going before he flicked the burner on, opened up the packet, and started shaping the biscuits. Hardhat always made them best – he’d shown Scout how, one time they were out in Offblast. Scout had made them often enough he didn’t need to check the recipe anymore, but he couldn’t get the crisp outside and soft inside Hardhat always did. They were always either soft or hard all the way through, and there wasn’t anything he could do about that if he wasn’t going to move to Texas or get himself a robot hand.

They still smelled freaking amazing as always, sweet and smoky, and they did the trick of getting Pyro up and into the kitchen earlier than he knew she would’ve come for oatmeal, just plain bacon or even pancakes. He let her serve herself and waited until she was done to start in on them.

She didn’t look at him when he sat down and he was fine with that.

“I’m gonna say somethin’. I’m gonna say somethin’ an’ I want you t’wait ’till I’m done. Don’t interrupt, jus’ lemme say it.” 

She put down her fork, crossed her arms, and glared. 

“I wasn’t thinkin’ last night. You know I don’t – I don’t stop t’think what I’m sayin’ when we’re fuckin’. you know I ain’t gonna stop an’ think when I could jus’ be talkin’. I never stop an’ think when I’m talkin’, okay, pretty much never. An’ last night I wasn’t thinkin’, it was jus’ somethin’ I was sayin’, somethin’ I’m used t’sayin’ t’people I sleep with. Most people. Not you. An’ I didn’t think – I’m jus’ used t’sayin’ it with other people. An’ I’m gonna be more careful ’bout what I’m sayin’ with you. I’m gonna try an’ not say it t’you again. I’m sorry I didn’t stop t’think, an’ I’m gonna try an’ stop an’ think when I’m with you. Okay?”

She looked away, twisted her mouth, opened and closed it, then shook her hands. “Fine. Whatever.”

“You gonna be okay sleepin’ together tonight?”

“Ask me tonight.”

“Okay.” He waited until she was done with her biscuits and bacon and was staring into the dregs of her coffee to ask, “Is – an’ it’s okay if you don’t say, but I jus’ – nobody’s called you that before?”

Pyro laughed, once. “No, people have called me that. They’ve called me beautiful. And pretty. Sweet. Nice. Good-looking. Pretty girl. Honey. Babe. Chickie. Sweet tits. Honey ass. Chica Bonita. Puta. Cusca. Chucha cuerera. Little pretty kitty fuck. Yeah. I’ve had people call me that. Even after they’ve seen my fucking face, they’ll call me that.”

“Oh.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, people would say that to me. I could be – fuck, I’ll turn around and they get this look on their face, like they fucking stepped in something, they realize what they were talking to. Or they’ll just go at it even harder. Like there’s something they need to do to win some fucking contest. Because that’s how it works, you fuck a pretty girl, great, you get a high-five at the bar. But you fuck an ugly girl, you fuck that crazy burned psycho chink bitch who works at Arturo’s garage, you get everyone buying you a fucking round, you get a story to tell.”

She was breathing hard, forcing air in and out of her nose, and Scout wished he could do something besides watch and listen, something, anything.

“Yeah. You fuck an ugly girl – you fuck the one girl working there, who’s been there eight goddamn years, who knows the boss better than fucking anyone else. When you’ve only been there four months and nobody else ever fucked her, and they’ve worked there longer than her and they say she owes it to them, they say she owes it to the boss to fuck him again. You fuck her, and the boss knows her a hell of a lot better than he knows you, he’ll still fire her after she’s worked there eight years and you haven’t even been there six months once the story gets out, and she thought, maybe it’d be okay to fuck someone just this once because it’s been long enough since she’s had anyone touch her. Yeah, you call her pretty, and you say you mean it and you fuck her and you brag about it, and you’re not the one who’s fucking fired.”

Pyro hunched, hands wrapped around her coffee, and glared down into what was left in the mug. Scout knew if he reached out and tried to touch her, she’d flinch away. That, or not do anything at all. Her eyes were empty.

“An’ then you started workin’ for RED, right?”

Pyro didn’t look up at him, and her mouth didn’t loosen, but her shoulders dropped a bit. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, you told me a while back you worked in a garage, fixin’ cars, fixin’ up toasters. An’ then RED called you up, or called you in, whatever they had t’do t’get your attention. An’ then you joined up an’ joined in the war. That’s how it went down, right?”

She nodded, and tried something close to a smile for a second. “Pretty much.”

“I ain’t sayin’ – okay, I’m kinda sayin’ but I don’t mean that I– what happened t’you back there, there ain’t words for how shitty that was, there ain’t anythin’ anyone could say t’make it better, an’ I ain’t gonna try. But I am gonna say that no matter how shitty that was, an’ no way he shoulda ever done anythin’ like that, him or your boss, nobody. I wanna say – I don’t wanna say I’m happy it happened, ’cause I ain’t, nobody oughta have that happen to ’em. An’ it did, and then you joined up with RED, an’ I’m happy y’did that, an’ what I wanna say, an’ if I’d had a couple days t’think about it I’d be sayin’ it better, but I’m jus’ sayin’ it now. What I wanna say is I’m happy you’re sittin’ here. With me. I ain’t happy ’bout what happened t’getcha here, but you’re here now, an’ I think it’s okay t’be happy ’bout that. Me an’ you. Both of us can be happy ’bout that.”

Pyro leaned away and turned to look out through the back door, over the city. Scout followed her gaze and they watched the morning light pour over the hills and fall across the rooftops.

“You wanna go t’the MOMA today?”

“Yes, I– yes, yes. Let’s go to the goddamn MOMA.”

“MOMA it is, then.” Scout gathered up the dishes, started loading up the dishwasher. “I think I saw this one thing, this one ad on a bus stop, I think what they got now’s some Bay Area realist-kinda thing. One a’the new exhibits. Painters doin’ realism.”

“Let’s go check it out.”

“Right.”

He waited until they were dressed and getting their stuff for the day together, back in their bedroom, to ask, “You gonna sleep in here tonight?” Pyro didn’t look up from getting her boots on. “You don’t hafta if you don’t wanna, I was jus’ thinkin’ about– there’s your old room, the extra room downstairs, you don’t need t’sleep in here, but I wanted t’know if it ain’t too soon t’ask.”

She slumped forward, her elbows on her knees. Scout walked around so he could see her face, her braid hanging down over her shoulder, swinging as she shook her head. “Ask me tonight. Just ask me tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” He turned around, then back. “Oh, an’ that guy, that asshole what got you fired – what happened t’him?”

“That asshole I fucked?” She looked at Scout with something in her eyes. “He died.”

“Oh.”

“In a fire.” And what was on her face was suddenly a smile.


	33. Chapter 33

33.

They spent the morning working their way through the galleries, starting at the top and going from the temporary to the permanent, before heading to the Civic Center, where Pyro ordered tongue burritos off a truck. They ate them on a bench underneath the sycamores, nearly where she’d spotted him in the crowd. A little more than a year ago, sixteen months ago, they hadn’t known anything about where either of them was or if they was even alive, and that was where all that changed.

“How much Spanish d’you know?”

“Not much.” She took a swig of strawberry soda. “I can order lunch off a truck, and I know when someone’s insulting me or my parents. I can give directions – I know every fucking part of pretty much every car engine made in North America, for whatever that’s fucking worth.”

“Hey, that beats what I know ’bout that. Spanish an’ English. I know engines have spark plugs, an’ carburetors. Fan belts. They got fuel pumps? They still got carburetors?” He wadded up the paper wrapper and tossed it into the trash can on the other side of the promenade. “You know how t’drive a car? You got me beat.”

“Yeah, I – wait, you don’t know how to fucking drive?” Scout shook his head. “You’re shitting me. How the fuck do you not know how to drive?”

“I ain’t never learned, is how. Maybe I mighta, sometime, if I’d needed t’know but I never did. Never needed t’drive when I was growin’ up, never needed t’drive t’get t’work, didn’t get that in basic trainin’, nobody needs a car in San Francisco – nope, never had t’learn. Stop lookin’ at me like that.”

“Fuck, Scout, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Yeah, you – you jus’ keep laughin’. Not everyone grew up in whatever, Car-opolois, whatever y’wanna call LA. Boston kept its streetcars, maybe sometimes you gotta drive but not everybody had to.”

“I didn’t drive.” She smirked at him, and readjusted her Camelbak straps when she stood up. “I know how and I don’t care what they say in the movies, nobody drives in Los Angeles unless they fucking have to. I lived close enough to work I’d walk there.”

“People walk in LA?”

“If you forget about the suburbs, it’s not that big a city.”

“Bigger’n San Francisco?”

“Nowhere fucking close.”

They circled around Potrero Hill, down through Noe Valley, and by the time they got home, she was back to looking more like herself. Scout didn’t say anything and watched her carefully, didn’t try anything but wait.

He was in bed reading a Brautigan collection when the shower stopped and he didn’t look up from the page he wasn’t paying attention to anymore until Pyro walked through the doorway. She stood there, walked through, sat down on her side of the bed and didn’t get under the covers or put her earplugs in.

Scout set the book aside and popped out his retainers. Pyro made a face and he made one right back before kissing her. Gently, the way she needed, until she ran her fingers over his head and wrapped a slick hand around the back of his neck, when he started to kiss her harder. He cradled her head in both hands and pulled her closer, stroking his thumbs over her cheekbones. She was clean from the shower, smelled like shampoo and coconut, her mouth tasting like peppermint. Scout broke the kiss to nuzzle and suck at the smooth side of her neck, feeling the low moan she let out when he bit down gently. He switched sides, nibbling at her skin, feeling it change texture underneath his tongue along the way. She moaned again when he bit the ragged side and groaned when he stopped.

“Relax,” he said.

“Fuck.”

“It’s okay. Relax.” Scout pulled her pajama top off, then wrapped his hands around her hips, pulling her legs around his waist. He got naked and slid down the bed, laying her down, before he reached for the waistband of her pajamas. “Relax.” Those came off, and then her briefs, and there it was, the origin of the world. There wasn’t any peppermint, coconut or shampoo down here. All he smelled was her. When he edged her legs apart and leaned in, all there was, was only her. There was only Pyro.

“Scout?”

“Relax,” he whispered and licked a long stripe upward. She barely shook under his hands, just enough for him to feel, and he licked her again. Gently, flattening his tongue, tracing the tip up the edges of her lips and down, outside and inside, circling around the little hole. He laid his tongue flat over it, pressed it against her, swiped it up fast to get a little taste of her. She tasted clean, she tasted like she smelled, she tasted wonderful.

Pyro almost pulled away when he put his tongue to her clit. She shivered and he held on tighter, nuzzled her thigh and gave her a big kiss right at the edge of her bush, pressed his nose right up to her pelvis and rubbed his cheek against her hair. Scout moaned and wondered if she heard him. He definitely hear her.

Scout stuck a finger in his mouth, got it good and wet, and put his tongue back on her clit as he slid it inside. That got a sound out of her, something that came from deep inside, where his finger was stroking her, something that went right to his cock. He could feel himself getting harder, dragging against the bedspread, and he took a deep breath and slid a second finger in. She almost twisted off his hand. He pressed down gently with his free hand, as much as he could, and flicked at her clit with just the tip of his tongue as he twisted his fingers inside her. When he crooked them on the spot that he’d learned to find, she moaned again, the loudest she’d gotten that night.

He had no idea how it’d taken him so long to get here.

Scout kissed her clit, open-mouthed, lips around and tongue on it, fingers curled and stroking inside her, and he sucked at that little button. He sucked hard. She groaned, and trembled, and then started moaning and squeezing tight around him. He didn’t stop, didn’t let up even for a second, he felt her begin to shake and he worked her harder. She was panting and shaking and didn’t stop; he shut his eyes tighter and held her in his mouth, his hands, pulling her orgasm out of her. It shuddered through her, he held it as long as he could. When she began to breathe easier, he worked her more gently. Just enough to tease it out, to pull her through a second, a smaller one that was still stronger, from what he'd heard and knew, from how she rolled her hips and gave another shuddering moan and almost couldn’t make any more noise.

He slid his fingers out smooth as he could, kept them cradled in a fist as he pushed himself up the bed to lie next to her. She had her eyes closed and was breathing deeply through her mouth. He kissed her cheek.

“Fuck.”

“Hey, thanks.” She laughed and didn’t open her eyes. “You need some water?” She shook her head and he kissed her again. “Be right back.”

Scout jerked himself off in the bathroom and stood there a moment in the yellow-white light, looking down at his dick in his hand, and realized that both parts of himself that were touching – both of them had been inside Pyro. He smiled, and finished into a wad of toilet paper.

Even after he brushed his teeth and washed his hands, checked how the black eye was coming along, Pyro was still lying on the bed. She was still naked and sweaty, and so was he. He laid down next to her and draped an arm over her chest. When she didn’t push him away he pulled her in a little closer.

“Fuck, Scout.” 

He tilted her head so he could see her face. “Relax, I brushed my teeth.” She smiled, angled her head up and kissed him, and then opened her eyes. He’d never seen her look at him with so much wonder, not even after she’d run into him on the promenade. Never seen her look at him with so much tenderness.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

The way she said it, with that tiny smile, made his chest ache for her. He didn’t want to ask and he didn’t have to, because what she said next was, “Nobody’s ever done that before.”

“Never?”

She shook her head. He held her closer.

In the morning, she didn’t bother getting dressed before braiding her hair. Scout watched her fingers as she started at the top of her head, passing the thick black strands from one hand to another, almost hypnotic, more and more added the further down she went until she got to the base of her skull.

Then she flipped the braid over her shoulder and he almost couldn’t breathe. He’d never watched her braid her hair before and he hadn’t seen her back, either. Not in light clear and bright enough to really get a good look at it – felt it plenty of times, seen all of her other big scars, but the way the light slid over it, the way she leaned into the braiding and how her back curled, that was new. And it was almost something he’d seen before.

Scout had gone out with his father twice before he died. He’d been nearly too young to remember, just a few months shy of his fifth birthday, and he couldn’t remember why he’d been taken out – there was always someone around to take care of a little kid in Southie, and all he knew is for whatever reason those two times it was his dad. And he had taken care of him, he’d never been in danger even once out on the boat, everyone wrapped up in coats and hats because even in summer, mornings were cold out on the ocean. Scout had watched Boston disappear until there was just ocean around him. The crewmen played with him when they could, let him do little jobs like checking the knots and helping to haul the rope, and he even got to eat lunch out on deck with them instead of staying cooped up in the bridge.

He remembered how the ocean smelled, how bright the sun was on the water, and he remembered his father’s hands wrapped around him – he remembered the feeling of those hands better than he remembered his dad’s face. Those hands had lifted him up over the waves, held him there to get a good, long look, and Scout knew his dad wanted him to see the waves, to know the ocean, where he might have ended up working if things had been a little different a long time after those two days.

Scout had watched the waves move, rise and fall, churn and slide and crash back into the ocean, and he could remember the movement if he tried. What he saw on Pyro’s back was a moment of those waves. A little bit of ocean. Or a little bit of fire, the shape of the flames, a moment of both or one of them caught on her.

Then she turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.

Almost six weeks later, just a week before Thanksgiving, when she joined him for breakfast, it was with a little box she slid over before she poured herself any coffee. 

He picked it up and grinned. “Look, you don’t need –”

“Yeah, I know I don’t need to, but I wanted to, okay? Just fucking take it.” Scout picked it up and shook it gently next to his ear, hefted it up and down a couple of times. Pyro was sitting down with coffee and blueberry pancakes when he ripped open the red wrapping paper, lifted the cover off the box, and stopped smiling. What was in the box was too much to smile about.

“It’s real jade,” she said when he picked up the rabbit. It wasn’t running or leaping like his tattoo, just looking up and around, trying to see what there was to see. Small enough it fit into his palm with some room left over. “It’s not the Jade Rabbit, but –”

“No, no, that’s – this is – thanks. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.”

“Pyro…” He closed his fingers around it. “I’ll find a good spot for it, a real good spot – I promise you I’ll get a real good one for it.”

“Just enjoy it, asshole,” she said, looking away. “Happy birthday.”

It went back into the box, the box went into their room, and it stayed there the rest of the day. He took it out to look at after it got dark, after Pyro was asleep, when he was alone in the house. He’d spent the whole day thinking about where it’d go. It could go out in the living room, or somewhere in the kitchen, or maybe downstairs by the fireplace and record player. 

Scout turned it over in his hands. There were even little toes on its paws, nothing silly or cute about all the detail the way cheap little figures could get – it didn’t look like what they had out in front in Chinatown in the windows where anyone could see. It looked like something she’d had to ask for, probably something they had in the back and only brought out if you knew and asked for it. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, then back to the bedroom, where he put it on the windowsill next to his bed, then turned it east so it could watch the sunrise.


	34. Chapter 34

34.

San Francisco never got cold enough to even get close to Boston cold, not even during December. But on cold winter days, Ocean Beach was enough to remind Scout of what real cold was. It was enough to keep just about everyone else away, and even Pyro had almost stayed home when he’d told her where he was headed. His promise that they’d have it practically to themselves was what got her to get her shoes on and follow him, and when they got to the beach, there were all of four other people who’d managed to come out and join them.

“Six people, three an’ a half miles, that’s more’n half a mile all to ourselves.” The wind was blowing in off the Pacific, salty and cold, and he took a deep breath and peeled off his sweatshirt.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” He started unlacing one shoe, peeled a sock away. “I’m gettin’ ready t’play on the beach, is what I’m doin’.” He got his other shoe off, and looked up at her. “Y’know, nobody’s stoppin’ you. There ain’t nobody here but us.”

“There’s those guys down there. And that guy over there.”

“Like they matter. C’mon, this is good beach sand here. See? No grit, no pebbles. When’s there gonna be another chance ’till next year t’get this much of it just for us?”

“February.”

“Which is next year.”

“Fuck you,” she said, without any heat. Scout grinned and started running, and she laughed and started running after him. He hit the beach with the ball of his feet, getting back into how it felt to run on sand, and barefoot, and like always he didn’t know why he didn’t do it more. When Pyro had almost caught up to him he spun, blew her a kiss, and started running back, playing tag with the waves as he went. The tide was coming in fast enough that he knew it’d win if he didn’t keep on his toes, and he had to move his shoes up a ways by the time he got back to them.

Pyro spread out the little towel she’d brought and sat down on the sand. Scout looked up from the waves lapping around his ankles, a little bit of real cold on a small part of him.

“Oh, no, no way, we didn’t race all the way out here jus’ so you could laze around, we coulda stayed at home for that!”

She ignored him and started unlacing her shoes.

“Hey, yeah, now we’re talkin’!”

She’d also rolled up her pants, same as him, and she’d cuffed them around her knees the same way he had with his. Scout didn’t leave the water and she walked out to him, more and more carefully the closer she got.

“Jus’ let it come. It’ll come anyway, you ain’t standin’ deep enough t’get really wet, we got that towel, you ain’t got nothin’ t’worry about, it ain’t even that cold.”

A wave crested, crashed, and came up the beach, enough to get Pyro’s toes wet and make her jump back.

“How the fuck is that not cold to you?”

“I never said it wasn’t cold, what I said it wasn’t that cold.”

Scout grabbed her hands, tried to pull her along, a move that he thought was working until she stopped and let go, and he stumbled enough for the next wave crashing onto the beach to crash into him. Falling backwards into the Pacific was more than enough to remind Scout of what cold really was. He howled, tried and failed to get back up before the next wave hit, then rolled onto his hands and knees and managed to stand, shook his head and wiped some salt from his eyes, then fixed his gaze on Pyro.

“No,” she said, backing up as he walked forward, going faster and faster. “No, you fucker, don’t even fucking think it, no, no, no!” She laughed as she tore across the beach, stumbling every third stride, Scout hot on her heels and trailing saltwater behind him, laughing after her. He caught her in a full-body, sticky-salt hug, and she only squirmed a little as she kept smiling and then kissed him. Then she drove an elbow into his stomach hard, and broke the kiss to run on back to her towel when he let go with a wheeze.

They got home a little before lunchtime, wet from the ocean and cool from the air, and Pyro showered in the upstairs bathroom while Scout took the downstairs one. He was looking through the fridge to get some lunch together when the phone rang.

“H’lo?”

“Hi, Scout. How’re you?”

“Hey, hi Dylan.” He cradled the phone to his chin with his shoulder. “Good t’hear from you. I’m doin’ good, just got home from a run t’the beach. How you doin’? How’s Engie?”

“I’m doing okay, so’s Dad. School’s off for another two weeks and Dad’s doin’ the lights for the nativity in town so we’re headin’ in tomorrow to take a look at the wiring and insulation and we’ve been talking about going cowboy camping after that’s over, so we’re not going to be around all that much soon so we figured we oughta call you now.” There was some muffled talk on the other end. “Yeah, Dad.”

“Your dad there?”

“Yeah, he’s here. You wanna talk to him?” 

“Sure.”

A moment passed, Scout heard the shower shut off, and then Engineer came on the line.

“Howdy.”

“Hey there, Hardhat. Dylan’s soundin’ good.”

“He is, ain’t he? An’ I didn’t catch you too early in the mornin’?”

“Nah, we just got back.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” Pyro was tying off the end of her braid and came over when Scout motioned for her to come. “Pyro’s here, you wanna talk t’her?”

“I –”

Scout handed the phone over. “It’s Engie.”

“Engie? Engineer?” Her eyes went wide. “Fuck.” And she nearly shrieked. “Fuck! Fuck me, just fucking hearing you! Jesus, how the fuck are you doing? And I don’t give a shit how much more I owe you, fuck! So what’s new?” She stopped. “Yeah.” Scout watched her face go blank. “Yeah.” A pause. “Okay.” She handed it back to Scout. “He wants to talk to you again.”

“Uh, hi?”

“Pyro’s stayin’ with you.” He winced at the tone, the sort of calm and collected voice Engineer always used right before he beat someone to death with a wrench. “Livin’ in your house.”

“Yeah.”

“Y’mind fillin’ me in on how long she’s been there?”

“It’s been, uh, been about…”

“Oh, we got all day here t’talk. But I’m sure we’d both rather you get along with it.”

“Been about a year an’ a half?”

“A year and a half.”

“Since last September. Not, y’know, not this September. September, last year.”

“Since last year, Pyro’s been livin’ with you. Since last year.”

Scout nodded, swallowed, and then said, “Yeah.”

“I don’t suppose y’could tell me why in the name a’God an’ all that’s holy you didn’t think t’call me.” Scout didn’t say anything. Pyro leaned against a counter and looked at him. “I suppose y’can’t, then.”

“I…”

“You ain’t got a single godforsaken reason why y’never thought t’pick up the phone an’ tell one of your oldest, best friends that one of his oldest, best friends happens t’still be alive an’kickin’. Someone he never heard from since that last day in Foundry, someone – Godammit, Scout, I knew more about what Sniper was doin’ than where Pyro was!” He winced. Pyro blinked, and he turned away. “There ain’t a single more moronic thing I’d think you could do, an’ you don’t even have a good reason – you don’t even have a bad one why you’d thought this would be a good idea, keepin’ everyone locked in the dark ’bout this.”

“Hey, I didn’t –”

“Didn’t think? Didn’t care? Didn’t want? What, Scout? Tell me what you didn’t.”

“I –”

“C’mon. Tell me. I’m listenin’.”

“Engie, y’tell people what you did durin’ the war? Y’know, when someone asks what you did for twenty-two years. Y’ever tell ’em?”

“I hardly see how that’s germane t’this discussion.”

“I don’t know what that means, an’ don’t stop t’tell me, you answer me, you ever tell ’em?”

“No.”

“There y’go.”

“Y’mind goin’ on?”

“You don’t tell people. Y’don’t say anythin’, you get used t’not talkin’ t’people you meet, you get used t’not sayin’ anythin’ to people you know, you get used t’not sayin’ shit t’your friends.”

“An’ you really think that happens t’be relevant an’ applicable.”

“Christ, Engie, yes!”

All Scout heard was heavy breathing, and for a moment he was afraid he’d hang up. “What kind of roundabout mad-hattery all-buggered flat-out cowardly piece of – you think that’s an excuse I’ll take. You think you’ll piss on me an’ say it’s rainin’. You think you’ve been together with Pyro for sixteen months –”

“Four.”

“I’ll – I’m sorry, what?”

“We’ve – I mean – we ain’t been together since she moved in, it’s only been since August.”

“Hang on. You – together. I…no. Y’wanna run that past me again?”

“It’s me an’ Pyro. We’re, y’know. Together-together.”

“Together together.”

“Christ, Hardhat, don’t make me spell it out –”

“What’s going on?” Pyro asked.

“I’m tryin’ t’tell him ’bout us, but he can’t get it into his thick skull that –”

She grabbed the phone from him. “Engie? Yes, we’re fucking.” She handed it back.

Scout cleared his throat. “What she said.”

“If you think droppin’ that sorta bomb is gonna do the trick of gettin’ rid of all my anger over not knowin’ she was with you, together or otherwise, an’ if you think I’m gonna forgive you an’ wish the two of you a happy life together an’ a houseful of children, you’d both better take a moment t’think again.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still angry. An’ it’s gonna take somethin’ mighty t’get me t’forgive you.”

“An’ I can’t just say sorry.”

“Not right now, you can’t. Not – all right, Dylan, Scout, you hang up an’ I’ll personally come t’San Francisco t’tear you a new one, give me a minute here.” Scout heard Engineer set the phone down on some hard surface, and he and Pyro listened in as best they could to their old teammate explain to his son what was going on. Pyro stepped away when Engineer came back. “Y’all gonna be around about an hour from now?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Talk t’you then.” He hung up, and Scout did too.

True to his word, an hour later, they were back on the line. “Y’know you can’t just go say you’re sorry an’ think that’s gonna be enough.”

“I do.”

“What y’all can do, an’ you’d better take it t’heart when I ask, is come out an’ see us.”

“I – we’d what?”

“Y’know. Visit us. It ain’t like I never asked you before, it’s practically every Christmas I ask you t’come on out an’ see the homestead. Only now I’m askin’ the two of you. An’ y’all’d better say yes this time, if you happen t’know what’s good for you.”

“Hang on.” Scout covered the mouthpiece. “He’s askin’ us t’visit him in Texas.”

“Seriously?” He nodded. “Like we’re going to fucking say no?”

Dylan was the only one out of the four of them who had anything close to a real schedule to keep and he’d be free once school got out in spring, making that the best time for the two of them to visit. More than enough lead time to get tickets, find someone to look after the house, make some reservations in Austin. Maybe even make plans to keep on going once they were through with Texas. It’d been Pyro’s suggestion – that as long as they were heading east, then New York City wasn’t that much farther away. 

“New York?” Scout asked.

She shrugged. “I used to live there. Back during the war.”

Scout looked at her, saw the way she was looking at him, then nodded back and put on a smile. “Y’know, I ain’t ever been t’New York. We oughta go, long as we’re headin’ out that way.”

“It’s a nice city.”

“Look, no matter how nice a city it’s gonna turn out t’be, it ain’t no San Francisco.”

“Long as travel’s on the table,” Engineer said, his voice coming loud from the receiver Scout held between his and Pyro’s heads, “it seems t’me that as long as you’re headin’ back east, there’s no reason t’turn around and go out west right away. I got no doubts about everyone else lovin’ t’hear from you two.”

“You mean – what are you saying?”

“What he’s sayin’ is we oughta keep on goin’, head out t’Europe an’ say hi to everyone.”

“That’d be precisely what I’m sayin’.”

“He’s right. We should.”

“Abso-freakin’-lutely, we should. I got Demo’s number, I got Heavy an’ Medic’s number, I don’t got Spy’s number but I could send him a letter – anyway, it’s too late t’call anyone today, but first thing tomorrow, Pyro, you remind me.”

“I will.”

“I’d better be off myself, it’s about Dylan’s bathtime – don’t give me that face, young man, we shook over the terms an’ conditions of the agreement – but tomorrow, my evenin’, we’ll talk more then, too. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds pretty good. Seeya soon, Hardhat.”

“Bye, Engie.” 

“Take care, the both of you.” The phone clicked off, and Scout hung up. Pyro looked at him, and they were kissing before he knew it, his hands buried deep in her hair under her braid.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “Fuck, Scout. Fuck.” He tilted his head down to press their foreheads together and she took a deep breath that he felt shudder through her. “I wish I’d thought – I didn’t fucking think about it, I just thought –”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t scared and I wasn’t trying to hide, I was just – Jesus, of course you fucking know,” she laughed. “We already had this conversation.”

“A while back, yeah. An’ yeah, I know. You got things you think you oughta keep t’yourself, you get used t’keepin’ things that way. An’ even when it’d be easier t’share you’re too used t’not sharin’. It gets t’be too much t’share. Too big a thing t’share.”

“That’s hitting the nail on the fucking head.”

He kissed her again. “An’ you know there ain’t nothin’ too big t’share with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Jus’ makin’ sure.”


	35. Chapter 35

35.

The more plans they made, the more preparations had to go along with them. Some things they wouldn’t need to worry about until they got to Texas or Scotland or Finland, and some things needed to get done ahead of time. There was one thing Pyro would have been happy to put off as long as she could, but Scout knew it had to be done, the sooner the better. When she argued about it, he told her it was either go shopping now in San Francisco or do it later in Texas, “An’ you really wanna buy a dress in Texas?”

She’d said no, which is how he managed to get her into the Macy’s off Union Square, working their way through the floors with a personal saleswoman who Scout had slipped fifty dollars the minute they got in the door to make sure she’d stick with them, trying to find something Pyro could wear for a night on the town. 

“You need a dress, you’ll get a dress, you’ll get outta here. We’ll be outta here by lunchtime.”

“Yeah, but once I get the dress, I’ll need shoes to match it, I’ll have to buy hose, I’ll need to get a fucking purse – okay, no, I don’t need to buy a purse but we’ll need to go shoe shopping, and I’ll have to fucking shave my legs...”

Scout slid his hand over a rack of skirts that fluttered when they moved. “I could shave ’em for you.”

“You want to what? Is that some sort of fetish I need to know about?”

“Nah, it ain’t anythin’ like that. I was jus’ thinkin’, it’d be you in the bathtub, all soapy an’ wet, me watchin’ you in the bathtub, you lettin’ me get my hands all over you.” He winked at her and she rolled her eyes, but didn’t hold her shoulders as tight as she had been. “We’ll get shoes later. Today it’s dresses, just dresses.”

Forty minutes later, after more and more frustrated searching, none of them had managed to turn up anything.

“C’mon, there’s gotta be somethin’ you could wear in here.”

“Just back the fuck off, okay? This isn’t easy for me.” She ran her hands over her hair. “I’m not against the idea of me wearing a dress. I don’t mind the idea of wearing a dress, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I know we’re going out where I’m going to need one, even all the hose and shit, I’m fine with the idea of all that. It’s just that I haven’t worn one since 1956.”

The saleswoman Sandy – a woman older than Pyro who definitely looked it – gave a double-take. Scout smiled and waved her off.

“Everything’s changed since then and none of these fucking things would fit me.”

“Okay, so what are you lookin’ for? We know what you don’t wanna wear, so what do you wanna wear? You want somethin’ a little older, there’s consignment shops, there’s vintage stores.”

“We’re here. Let’s just get one here. And I guess something simple. Something that looks…something that looks clean, and doesn’t have a lot of ruffles or lace or sequens sewn on, just a plain dress. But a nice plain dress. Something with fucking sleeves on it. It wouldn’t have to have pockets, but it needs a goddamn pair of sleeves.”

“You got that?” Scout asked Sandy. “A nice plain dress that’d cover her arms up nice an’ good?”

“I think we do, two floors up. Not a lot of designers are doing sleeves this cycle, I’m sorry. But why don’t we go check? Just this way.”

“You don’t need to fucking apologize.” Pyro started walking towards the escalators ahead of Scout and Sandy. “It’s not your fucking fault nobody’s making dresses like that.”

Scout pressed a twenty into Sandy’s palm when Pyro wasn’t looking, and Sandy squeezed out a smile in his general direction before going after Pyro.

Another fifteen minutes later, they’d found two Pyro didn’t pass over immediately, four more that she said she thought looked good, and one that she glanced at, and then looked at again. She tried on two before heading into the dressing room with that last, leaving Sandy standing at attention and Scout slouched on a bench. He sat up and stared when she came out wearing it, he kind of had to – and she was even smiling, like she knew it too.

“So what do you think?”

“Now that’s a nice dress.”

“Oh, absolutely, no question,” Sandy said. “You look marvelous.”

Scout hadn’t ever seen a smile fall off anyone’s face so fast. Pyro stared at Sandy and took two deep breaths, and when she started to talk, her words were tight and hard, like she had to force them out one at a time, until they started running out, all of them trying ahead of the rest.

“Okay. Okay. I know you’re probably paid on commission and the more money you get people to spend the more you make. I get that. That’s fine. And I know you really want to make this sale. But you don’t need to lie to make that happen. You don’t need to – you don’t have to fucking lie to make that happen, you don’t need to bullshit your way into anything, I’m not buying this. Fuck, I’m not going to buy this goddamn dress, I don’t give a shit what you fucking say.”

She turned around, but Scout was there before she took a single step, hand on her arm, talking quietly right next to her.

“Pyro? Hey, Pyro, c’mon, eyes on me, okay? You listenin’?” She didn’t look at him, but nodded. “She wasn’t talkin’ ’bout you, she was talkin’ about the dress. We’re talkin’ about the dress here, not you. She was sayin’ the dress looks good on you. Not that you don’t look good right now. Yeah, you look good in it, but that’s the dress doin’ the work, not you. No way would it look good on me. C’mon. I’m too tall t’pull off the hemline like that, it wouldn’t go down low enough, no way would Sandy look good in it, look at her, she’s too tall too. See? It works on you, it fits you, it looks good on you, but it’d look good on anyone like you. It’s, y’know, it’s fortunate. That it looks good on you.” She didn’t look at him, and she didn’t jerk her arm away, either. “Hey, Sandy, that’s what you meant, right?” Scout called out. “That it looks good on her?”

“Yes, exactly, that’s right what I meant, exactly!”

“See? It looks good on you, is all we’re sayin’.”

Pyro pulled away from his hand, and he let her go. She stood there a moment, staring away at the floor. “I’m trying on something else.”

“Great, let’s see what else we got here, you wanna try the green one?”

“Sure.”

Pyro tried on the other four dresses, then did another loop around the floor and came back with three more. When they finally left, she’d bought two: one of the last three she’d grabbed, something almost relaxed, and the first one she’d liked, the one that’d made her smile when she came out wearing it.

They ended up walking back along the Haight. Pyro stopped at one of the vintage stores along the way, and Scout couldn’t guess why she was so happy to look at more clothes until she bought a t-shirt that he couldn’t believe had gotten made.

“Pyro, you know there’s no way in hell you can wear that in Texas.”

“I can wear it in bed.”

“Yeah, an’ that’s it. Why the hell didya buy a shirt like that jus’ t’sleep in it?”

“Just to know I have it. You’ve got no fucking idea how much I wish I had this when I was working at the garage.”

The way she was smiling, Scout knew he could guess, and also that he shouldn’t. What he tried instead was something he waited to do until they were back home, her new dresses in the closet and her new shirt in the dresser, both of them reading on the couch. She was leaning into him, he was up against her, and he didn’t go for any of the fake-yawning bullshit. He just put his arm over her shoulders. Scout didn’t watch Pyro’s face, but he felt her sigh, and he didn’t feel her push him off. 

And they sat like that.


	36. Chapter 36

36.

What Scout wanted was a nice place to spend an evening, field-test one of the dresses that’d been hanging in the closet, really have a night on the town with Pyro to say good-bye to their city. He booked it weeks in advance, and even with all the time he’d had to prepare he was still trying to pick out what to wear long after Pyro finished getting ready and went out to wait in the living room. There was his good suit, and his nice suit, and his old dress blues. The first one he’d worn when he had to show up at RED’s offices to meet with Miss Pauling or a Miss someone-or-other, the second when he’d had to go to court or to the offices to meet the big boss in charge of everything – he still wore them sometimes, when he had to go to meet Mrs. Carlson or someone like her. But he hadn’t worn his dress uniform since he’d stopped going to funerals. And he’d stopped going to funerals after his mother’s.

Scout ghosted his hand down the sleeve, rubbed the cuff between his fingers. Then he grabbed it off the hook.

Pyro turned away from one of his mother’s paintings when he walked in. She looked at him, looked him up and down, then finally said, “You look good.” 

“Thanks.” He coughed. “You – you got a nice outfit there, too.” She was wearing her nice dress, the one that’d made her smile. The sleeves went down past her elbows, the hem went to her knees, and the neckline came up over her shoulders and high up her chest. It had some sleekness to it, the way it hung on her hips, with a little bit of shine, a little bit of a fringe at the edge of the skirt. And it was all a bright, rich shade of red, something that was almost the same color of her old uniform. She wore it with a shiny pair of shoes, a clutch purse with a giant flower on the side that Scout couldn’t imagine her ever paying money for, and her hair loose and fancy – she’d left it in a braid for two days so that when she finally took that out it kept the braid’s shape, curling in waves down her back, and he thought it looked beautiful, the black against the red. He’d seen her naked, and he’d never seen her look so much like a lady.

And there was half her face and both her hands.

“You – your hair looks good, too.”

“Thank you,” she smiled.

He grinned and held out an elbow. “You ready?”

Pyro walked up to him, then right by him. “As long as you are.”

They caught the light rail on Cole and took it all the way down, walked a little through the early spring night into one of the fanciest restaurants Scout had ever been to. When he’d made the reservation, he’d asked about getting a specific table, and the place delivered on its promise. The hostess led them through the dining room to sit at the back by a window with a view of the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge. A waitress showed up almost as soon as they were seated, poured them fresh water and lit the candle on their table, introduced herself as Valerie.

“Have you eaten here before?”

“A couple times, just a few. Not in a while.”

“No, not – no,” Pyro said, her eyes darting between Valerie and the table.

“All right,” she said, handing them their menus, gave them each a cocktail list and recited the line-up of the daily specials. “We also have a prix fixe menu, on the back which you can order from à la carte if you like. The animal this week is rabbit.”

“That sounds pretty good.” Scout smiled up at her. “We’ll take a few minutes, pick out somethin’.”

“All right.” She disappeared back into the crowd, and Scout started reading over what she’d given him. 

“So what looks good? The roasted scallops might – Pyro?”

She looked up, leaning down over her plate with her arms crossed and elbows on the tablecloth. “Yeah.”

“You got any idea what you wanna eat?”

“The – she said the, that the cold pea soup sounded good.”

“Anythin’ else?”

“Let me find something.” He watched her start reading her menu, her head moving back and forth and her gaze darting all over the page, up to the table and back down to the words.

“Hey, you listenin’?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure you’re listenin’ t’me?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head, leaned down, and blew out the candle. Pyro shuddered and blinked. “Huh? What?”

Scout snapped his fingers. “Focus. Eyes up here.”

“Right, sure. So – what did you just say? You know what looks good?”

“Pretty much everythin’ here’s gonna be great.”

“Okay.”

“I was thinkin’ of the scallops ’till she told me ’bout the rabbit, but it’s been a while since I had good scallops. An’ they got good steak here – an’ plenty of places in the city got good steak, though, it ain’t hard t’get good steak.”

In the end, Scout ordered the crab salad and the scallops, and Pyro got the pea soup and the sturgeon. Valerie came back just a few minutes later with his glass of wine and Pyro’s beer. 

People glanced their way every so often, and even though Scout knew why, he buffed his fingers on his shirt and grinned at Pyro. “Yeah, lookin’ good over here. Y’know, it used t’be when you’d go out in dress blues, everyone tipped their hat t’you, know you did somethin’ good t’earn ’em. An’ it’s kinda weird, y’know, not funny-weird but weird-weird, you don’t see anyone wearin’ ’em too much much anymore. Even when the Presidio was up an’ runnin’, back when they’d had real military workin’ in the city, nobody really wore dress uniforms off-base – I mean, they wore uniforms, but nobody’d put on their nices ones t’go out t’dinner. Okay, t’dinner on the Presidio, maybe you’d wear ’em t’someone’s big birthday party, some retirement bash or wedding dinner, but not to a place like this, not if you weren’t a captain or somethin’ like that. Corporal, staff seargent, you ain’t a colonel or captain, no way you’d wear ’em out here.”

“So why are you wearing yours? You told me you never got above private.”

He wanted a better last memory of wearing it than his mother’s funeral. “I wanted t’look nice takin’ you out here.”

“You’ve eaten here before, right?”

“Yeah. Not for a while, though.”

“So why – oh.” Valerie set down his soup and her salad, ground some pepper over Pyro’s soup, and drifted off. “Why do they do that?”

“I read somewhere they gotta do it so the pepper’s fresh.” 

“I guess that makes sense.”

He took a bite of his salad and groaned. “So how’s yours?” They’d made his salad with fruit, not vegetables – something like a sweet lemon, and papaya, with a bright green dressing drizzled all over everything he sopped up with bits of the crab. Pyro’s soup was almost a broth, almost the same color as the salad dressing, with a zing to it they couldn’t place that Valerie told them was tarragon and mint.

The scallops were even better, small, tender, and sweet the way they were supposed to be. They came with tiny artichoke hearts a thousand miles away from what his Ma used to order when she wanted something fancy and he knew she would have loved them even more than he did. He got a bite of Pyro’s sturgeon, but just one, and he could understand why she wanted to keep the rest of it to herself, even if he had no idea how they got the smoke flavor in there and kept it so fresh.

“Oh, yeah, now that’s it,” Scout mumbled around a mouthful of white strawberry cheesecake.

“Fuck yes.”

“Y’know,” he chewed and swallowed, gulped down the rest of his espresso and swallowed again. “Y’know, food’s like this why I moved here in th’first place.”

“Really?” He nodded. “You never told me that.”

“I thought I’d done that already.” He poured some milk into his espresso mug, swirled it around to grab the last of the grounds, and drank that before looking back up at Pyro.

“Not yet.” She leaned in over the table. “Why don’t you go ahead and fill me in?”

“Ah – I – all right. Okay.” Scout grabbed the check from Valerie’s hand before Pyro had a chance to even twitch, slid in his credit card and handed it back. “It was, y’know, it was after the war, an’…an’ I was thinkin’, war’s over, I got nowhere t’be, I oughta finally go out an’ travel. See what’s out there. You remember how it went, you had a week here, two weeks there, you couldn’t ever leave home for more’n three, four days ’cause you didn’t know when they’d be callin’ you again. But they wouldn’t ever be callin’ me again, so I thought, now’s the time t’travel.”

He gave Valerie a big cash tip, and he and Pyro got their things. This time, Pyro held his hand as they walked up Market Street. “I never did t’get t’New York, but I did get out t’see Niagara Falls. Jus’ goin’ around, movin’ west, an’ when you’re movin’ west after a while you’re gonna run outta America. An’ when that happens, you’re gonna wind up in California. An’ when it happened t’me, I ended up in San Francisco. When I got here, it was – I mean, I still think it, but back then it was even more ’cause it was all so new, you hear about San Francisco, you read about it, you see it in the movies. An’ it still looks like the movies. I love that. I always heard so much about this place, an’ when I got here it was like steppin’ into some kinda magical kingdom, y’know? Like in all those old fairy tales, it’s like, comin’ t’San Francisco is like steppin’ into fairyland.”

“Fairyland?”

“Okay, you know – anyway. I was here, an’ I was lookin’ around, an’ one night, my second night here, I went out t’some place, somewhere in North Beach, some little Italian place near the Transamerica Buildin’. An’ what I got there…”

Scout took a deep breath, and squeezed Pyro’s hand. “When I was growin’ up, we never had plenty but we always had enough. If my Ma wanted t’get somethin’, anythin’ nice on the table, she had t’work t’get it there. She’d be getting’ up almost before my dad, t’be first in line at the docks in the mornin’ t’get first dibs on the good fish. An’ my Dad caught the freakin’ fish, he caught freakin’ lobsters, but he couldn’t afford t’take what he’d caught home with him. So maybe three, four times a year, my Ma’d make somethin’ really special. An’ I came here, come t’some random restaurant I jus’ happen t’walk by, an’ there’s that thing, here’s what I almost never had at home sittin’ on the table right in front of me. An’ I realized that, I realized that if I moved here, I could eat this stuff – I could eat like a king every night, jus’ by livin’ here.”

He let go of her hand, just for a second, to lace their fingers together. “I’d wanted t’get outta Boston a while, an’ don’t laugh, I jus’ – I needed a new place t’live. I still think about it like home sometimes, I grew up there, I kinda gotta think about it like that, but I felt like a goddamn tourist. I wanted –”

“Someplace new. You wanted someplace where you wouldn’t be walking around and see someone you know that you can’t say shit to, or something you don’t give a fuck about anymore. Someplace different, where you don’t know anyone and you can get away from everything that’s following you.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted. How’d you know?”

“It’s what I wanted when I moved to New York from Los Angeles.”

Scout looked at her, then leaned down and kissed her on her ragged cheek raised up in a smile.

He kissed her again, and again in bed a little while later – they’d kicked up their feet and picked up the pace to get home faster, only took a little time to make sure their clothes got off all right before they threw them onto the floor and jumped into bed with each other, Scout’s hands on Pyro’s hips as he thrust up into her, her hands down on his shoulders as he got one hand rolling her good nipple and the other on her clit to make her come. He was still hard and getting ready to go take care of himself when her hand on his arm stopped him.

“You don’t have to leave.”

Pyro lay on the bed, well-fucked thanks to him, her hair spread around her head like a shining black star. She was smiling, tired and happy, and she wasn’t letting go of him. “What, you wanna finish me off? You told me why you ain’t ever gonna gimme a blowjob –”

“Who said anything about blowing you?” She kept pulling and he laid down next to her. The angle was weird but she wrapped her hand around his cock the best she could and he shivered at her slick, smooth skin. All the strength in those fingers. He slid his right hand underneath his body to join the fun, pulled her closer again for another kiss that he broke to nuzzle the crook of her neck and take in a deep breath of her scent, before lacing his fingers with hers and teaching her just how he liked to be jerked off. After a few strokes he loosened his grip and let her take over, slow and relaxed, and she smiled as she finished him off.

She got up and showered first. When he was done, she was standing in the bedroom, a strange look on her face he hadn’t seen before.

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to say this more than once.” Scout stared at her, just as naked as he was. “I don’t ever want to hear you say it to me. I’m just going to say this once, so you’d better fucking listen.”

Then she told him.

Scout couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and almost took a step back.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t know what the fuck my parents were thinking – I know they wanted something American, but it isn’t, maybe they thought it’s romantic but it really fucking isn’t, and –”

“Pyro, hey, Pyro,” Scout slid a hand up her arm to squeeze her shoulder. “I think it’s a nice name.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Trust me, I ain’t ever gonna say it, but, y’know, I think it’s a real pretty name.”

He took a deep breath, and then told her. Told her twice as much, in fact, and regretted it the moment it was out of his mouth because that was when she started laughing.

“That’s what your parents wanted to call you? That? Jesus, that’s a character from a fucking Charles Dickens novel, not a name.”

“Hey! He was a great saint, I’ll have you know. Great saint an’ a doctor of the church, an’ there ain’t no shame in keepin’ a family name like that.”

“I know, Scout, but fuck, that’s – it’s not what I’d thought.” She smiled and pushed herself up on her toes to kiss him. “But it does work for you.”

He slid a hand through her hair. “Y’know it’s been on my dogtags all this time?”

“Yeah.” One of her hands slid up his chest to take them between her fingers, run them back and forth on the ball chain. “I never read them, though.”

“Never?”

“It felt too private.”

“You can now. If you want.”

“Thanks.” She kept sliding them along the chain. “You’ve never taken them off? Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

Scout jerked awake some hours later from a dream he forgot the moment his eyes snapped open, then remembered where he was. He sat up and looked around, just to make sure, and then looked down at Pyro, who was still asleep. She rolled over onto her side, and a little shake didn’t even have her push against him. He smiled and leaned down, right to her ear. She had her earplugs in, and couldn’t hear him, and he whispered anyway.

In the dark, just the once, he whispered her name.

He bent down and kissed her ragged cheek, then lay down next to her and pulled himself close.

“Welcome home.”

 

_Where are you going I don't mind_  
 _I've killed my world and I've killed my time_  
 _So where do I go what do I see_  
 _I see many people coming after me_  
 _So where are you going to I don't mind_  
 _If I live too long I'm afraid I'll die_  
 _So I will follow you wherever you go_  
 _If your offered hand is still open to me_  
 _Strangers on this road we are on_  
 _We are not two we are one_

_So you've been where I've just come_  
 _From the land that brings losers on_  
 _So we will share this road we walk_  
 _And mind our mouths and beware our talk_  
 _'Till peace we find tell you what I'll do_  
 _All the things I own I will share with you_  
 _If I feel tomorrow like I feel today_  
 _We'll take what we want and give the rest away_  
 _Strangers on this road we are on_  
 _We are not two we are one_

_Holy man and holy priest_  
 _This love of life makes me weak at my knees_  
 _And when we get there make your play_  
 _'Cos soon I feel you're gonna carry us away_  
 _In a promised lie you made us believe_  
 _For many men there is so much grief_  
 _And my mind is proud but it aches with rage_  
 _And if I live too long I'm afraid I'll die_  
 _Strangers on this road we are on_  
 _We are not two we are one_

_Strangers on this road we are on_  
 _We are not two we are one_

_\- “Strangers,” The Kinks_


End file.
